Crystal Bridges Museum Exceeds Expectations in First Year

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Crystal Bridges Museum Exceeds Expectations in First Year

by Mark Carter on Friday, Nov. 9, 2012 11:23 am

Michael Pirnique

Near the entrance of museum is this 47-foot-tall, stainless steel tree-like sculpture called "Yield," by Roxy Paine.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art at night. The museum is renown for its grounds and architecture as well as its collection.

Michael Pirnique

Alice Walton, the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. heiress who founded Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

Michael Pirnique

Crystal Bridges features flooring made by Maxwell Hardwood Flooring of Monticello and installed by Miller Commercial Flooring Inc. of Springdale.

Dwight Primiano

Thomas Moran's "Autumn Landscape," an 1865 oil on canvas painting, part of the Crystal Bridges permanent art collection.

Jackie Wilson

Don Bacigalupi, director of the museum.

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Kiefer moved to Bentonville from San Francisco with her husband in 2010, when his work required him to be closer to Wal-Mart. Eventually, his work took him back to California, but Red Clay maintains its Bentonville corporate office and Kiefer splits her time between northwest Arkansas and the Bay area.

She believes the museum's success is an "outcropping" of several things: the positive impact of Wal-Mart; the "symbiotic" relationship it has with Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale, J.B. Hunt Transport Services of Lowell and the region's small-business innovators; and the growing emergence in the region of "thought leaders."

Adding a world-class museum into that mix has helped create a new buzz, Kiefer said.

The museum's first-year traffic already puts it on par with other renowned museums.

"We certainly felt we'd be well received," Carroll said. "But the numbers have been overwhelming."