A conversation with . . . Jeane Hamilton

Arkansas Arts Center’s past and future is owed to women who wouldn’t give up

Illustration of a woman looking at a painting.
Illustration of a woman looking at a painting.

A cultural rivalry on both sides of the Arkansas River earlier this year looked like it might become contentious. But all that ended on Nov. 3, when the city of Little Rock agreed to pay at least $700,000 a year to the Arkansas Arts Center for building maintenance.

The agreement came after the Arts Center Foundation (which owns the AAC's art collection) had announced it was considering taking its artwork to a new riverfront property in North Little Rock because of the deteriorating condition of its current building and the desire to have its art displayed and stored in an updated facility.

"I love that it's in MacArthur Park, and

that's where I want it to stay," says Jeane Hamilton, an emeritus member of the Arts Center's Board of Directors, during a recent program with Dean Skip Rutherford at the Clinton School of Public Service. "It's an opportunity to grow and meet the community's needs."

Hamilton says that everything about the Arts Center's existence traces back "to a group of talented women."

She was among them. Her efforts were instrumental in getting the AAC up and running, and she remains committed to the future of the institution.

It all started in the early 1950s when Hamilton, who studied art in college in Indiana, moved to Little Rock. "I was a member of the Junior League; the president, Carrie Dickinson, asked me to be the arts chairman on their board."

Back then the city had the Museum of Fine Arts in MacArthur Park, which wasn't exactly thriving. "They gave me the key [to the Museum of Fine Arts] and I went there every day," Hamilton said. "There was nobody else there except the janitor and me."

Hamilton and fellow Junior Leaguers Dickinson and Marilyn McHaney decided to reach out to future Arkansas governor Win Rockefeller with the idea of creating a community arts center. After graciously receiving them in his Robinwood home, Rockefeller told them: "Girls, if we're going to build an arts center, it needs to be for the whole state of Arkansas."

Why not think big? said Hamilton. The group decided to launch a statewide capital campaign to enlarge the museum and expand its programs.

"We finally got permission to raise $200,000 from 1959-1960," Hamilton said. At the time, Little Rock was still reeling from the aftershocks of the Central High Crisis of 1957. "Win had just married Jeannette [in 1956]. We told him what we wanted to do. He said, 'I will not be your chairman, but I'll help you raise that money.'"

So the appeal for funds commenced.

"We went up and down Main Street getting checks, we flew around the state in Rockefeller's private plane," she says. "Kids would put nickels and dimes in jars. And we raised that money. It was a positive thing we were trying to do and took the emphasis off the problems in Little Rock at the time. We could never have done it without Win."

AAC opened in May 1962 with a glamorous celebration.

"We had a big party with celebrities like cartoonist Charles Addams, actor/singer Gordon McRae, actress Joan Fontaine, and jazz pianist Dave Brubeck; national papers were covering it," Hamilton recalled. "We opened with the exhibit Five Centuries of American Arts [from the Metropolitan Museum of Art] in the new galleries. It was big-time stuff."

It was a stylish launch, all right. But by 1968, it seemed like the organizers might have set their sights too high. Money was becoming problematic, as many assumed the Rockefeller contribution would cover the AAC's operating costs. So friends of the arts in Arkansas perceived little need to kick in.

Hamilton, who was then chairman of the board of trustees' program committee, was quoted in an article about the AAC's situation in the Arkansas Democrat as saying, "The board thinks it is neither desirable nor proper that the institution be financed any longer by any one family to the extent the Winthrop Rockefellers have supported it thus far."

Elaborating on that topic at the Clinton School, she said, "We had a bachelor of fine arts program that cost a lot of money, so we finally redirected. We cut back to the bone and started from scratch. The Children's Theatre did not die when a lot of things did." Nor did the galleries, the studio classrooms, the sculpture courtyard, the art library, the Museum School, the Artmobile (which takes the AAC's treasures across the state), and the enviable gift shop, currently stocked with lovely ceramics, beautifully crafted jewelry, hand-blown glass, sculptures, and collectibles.

There were also management difficulties. The AAC went through several directors in short order before the Rockefellers recruited South Carolina native Townsend Wolfe (then 32) in 1968, who brought artistic and administrative order to the facility, including the savvy decision to narrow acquisitions to French, Italian and American drawings.

"I told Win [Rockfeller] that I would take the job on condition that I run the place with no meddling by others," Wolfe told the New York Times in 2000. "I said, 'If I'm going to be fired it's because I didn't do the job, not because I let somebody else try.' "

Hamilton was chairman of the AAC personnel committee when Wolfe was hired: "'I am too young to fail,' he said."

And he didn't. Along with innovative fundraising tools--"We were the first to do a silent auction at [AAC fundraiser] Tabriz; now they're everywhere," Hamilton says--the AAC started a traveling seminar in 1972. "In 1975 about 20 of us went to the People's Republic of China. In 2002 we went to Cuba. Nobody was going to Cuba then. Cuba was in terrible shape. We visited a lot of artists and brought some things back. There was a reception in which Fidel [Castro] walked in, wearing a nice navy blue suit; it was quite interesting."

Under Wolfe's leadership, the AAC greatly expanded its permanent collection and recruited plenty of new members. Then Wolfe retired in 2002 and was replaced by Nan Plummer. Trouble struck in 2010 with the exhibit World of the Pharaohs: Treasures of Egypt Revealed, which was expensive (budgeted at $1.7 million) and failed to generate enough revenue because of poor attendance figures. The exhibit caused a budget deficit of about $1.6 million and led to the departure of Plummer in 2010. Todd Herman, the present executive director, took over in 2011.

"This is one of the most remarkable stories in Little Rock history," said Rutherford, clearly charmed by his guest's narrative.

Despite her self-possessed appearance on the Clinton School stage, "I was really intimidated when I was asked to do this," she said a few days later. "I'd never done anything like this before. But I lived it."

She remains an elegant presence in the AAC galleries and at social events. And she continues to support the arts across Little Rock, receiving a warm welcome by patrons of Cantrell Gallery (along with her longtime like-minded friend Olga Elwood) at a recent opening reception of a show of paintings titled In Arkansas Territory by Democrat-Gazette artist and chief editorial cartoonist John Deering.

A final question came from a member of the Clinton School audience: What's your secret to the fountain of youth? Hamilton, who will celebrate her 90th birthday in March, didn't hesitate. She replied, "Keep going."

Editorial on 11/22/2015

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