Crystal Bridges, the Alice Walton-led museum in Bentonville, is in the middle of another controversy sure to stir the hoity toity arts writers on the coasts before it’s over.
The museum has offered $30 million to the financially troubled Fisk University in Nashville to share its Alfred Stieglitz collection, which includes works of Georgia O’Keeffe. The O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe is fighting the art-sharing arrangement and a hearing is scheduled in September in Nashville. The crown jewel of the O’Keeffe works is the painting shown here, “Radiator Building — Night. New York.”
As Leslie Newell Peacock reported for us in a cover story back in June, scraps and competition have marked the quest to build great art collections for centuries. At first blush, I think Crystal Bridges deserves some credit for trying to strike sharing deals, as opposed to purchases that remove masterworks from historic homes. But you know me. I”ve always been easy on the Waltons.