Alice Walton, the daughter of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton and one of the world's wealthiest people, will present plans Monday for the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, to open in Bentonville in May 2009.
Walton and the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation recently paid $35 million for Asher B. Durand’s painting “Kindred Spirits,” an 1849 landscape depicting Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painting, and William Cullen Bryant, a journalist who inspired Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting will hang in the new museum.
Walton and the Foundation lobbied for passage of a bill that exempts the Foundation from having to pay Arkansas’ 6 percent sales tax on the acquisition or sale of artwork. The bill, which passed March 21, which was introduced by Rep. Horace Hardwick, R-Bentonville.
Hardwick wouldn't identify the nonprofit organization mentioned in the bill, but sources who requested anonymity told the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal that it’s the Walton Foundation and that Alice Walton, daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, was behind the museum plan.
Monday's news conference for accredited media is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in Bentonville. Alice Walton and representatives from Moshe Safdie & Associates, Peter Walker & Partners, Princeton University and the Northwest Arkansas Council are scheduled to attend.
Bob Workman, the project director, and representatives from Moshe Safdie & Associates and Peter Walker & Partners will be available on the Bentonville Town Square from 2-4 p.m. Monday to discuss museum planning and to present models and design images.
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