Crystal Bridges Museum to Reveal Major Acquisitions
- June 03, 2015 18:48
Walmart heiress Alice Walton has spent nearly $150 million on art in the last year, reports the New York Times, and some of her most recent purchases are yet to be made public. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Bentonville, Ark., museum largely bankrolled by Walton, is expected to make an announcement of important new acquisitions.
Earlier disclosures this spring highlighted new works at the museum by Grant Wood, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Wilhelm Hunt Diederich, and others.
A record-setting $36 million Jasper Johns "Flag' painting, a near-$45 million Mark Rothko, and a $35-$40 million suite of Louise Bourgeois sculptures, including the giant spider sculpture "Maman," are among the biggest of Walton's purchases since fall 2014, according to the New York Times. The Bourgeois will bolster Crystal Bridges's collection of women artists which is said to be strong, with 117 female of 674 represented artists, a high percentage for a museum.
An auction record price for any woman artist was achieved last November when the museum acquired Georgia O'Keeffe's "Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1" for $44.4 million at Sotheby's.