Crystal Bridges Museum
Updated: 3 hours ago
BENTONVILLE, ARKANSAS
A little background about this museum and me. My wife, my daughter, and I attended the grand opening weekend back in 2011. Even back when I wasn't writing about museums, I was still a museum nerd. We happened to be on the elevator with Japanese dignitaries where our daughter and their daughter had a great interaction without the benefit of speaking the same language. Great memory!! I had that in my head when I recently visited Crystal Bridges after not going for over a decade. I was thoroughly impressed again.
With the latest batch of new billionaires in the news, it's difficult to imagine that there was a time in our country's history when true philanthropists created and funded libraries, public spaces, housing for the poor, museums, and other projects that benefitted greater society. As an antidote to the ego rockets and hoarding practices of the nouveau-riche, a bold initiative in the early 2000s by Alice Walton set in motion the building of one of the greatest museums in America. Alice, who is the daughter of Sam Walton, the Wal-Mart founder, had a vision of bringing American art to the people of our great country for free. While I feel that Wal-Mart strayed from Sam's initial concept of buying and selling American products and ethically existing in the marketplace, Alice has continued her dad's legacy by essentially doing what he did, buy American. For her though, it's buying art created by American artists and giving us an impressive venue to come see it all. You'll notice very few pieces of art that were created by artists that are not from American, but the vast majority are either US born, or US immigrants. A little bit of trivia that I learned is the first work purchased for this museum is the second photo below. It is the piece Kindred Spirits by Asher Brown Durand. It's a defining image of American art as it honors the painter's mentor Thomas Cole and the poet William Cullen Bryant.
This article is broken into three sections. As you can see from the aerial photo below (from Crystal Bridge's website), this museum is massive. Luckily there is a cafe and restaurant to relax in when you get tired. Nothing like a chai latte to help me take a break from soaking in amazing art. My back and legs thanked me for the rest, and then I got back to perusing. The three sections I have for you are the general permanent collection, the special Keith Haring exhibit, and the special Grandma Moses exhibit. I have to tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed the idea that Keith Haring and Grandma Moses, two ends of the artistic spectrum, were featured in the same museum at the same time. To me, this is how art should be, curated to expand your mind and your perseption of what art can be. The first section of photos is from the "regular" parts of the museum. These are the works that you can see almost any time you visit Crystal Bridges. The second part will be Keith Haring, one of my favorite artist. I even have Haring tattoos! The third section of photos is from Grandma. These special exhibits usually have an entry fee, while the rest of the museum is free to everyone. I gladly paid the extra money to see Keith and Grandma Moses. Thankfully I had it to spend. I'll have a quick write up of the special exhibits above each set of photos. Hope you like them all.
In this first section, it's difficult to see the true sizes of some of these works. Some are very small and some are enormous. That's why you should try to go see this museum. If they're huge, I tried to include part of the floor or ceiling to show how big it is. Other than that, you may have to use your imagination.
600 Museum Way, Bentonville, Arkansas
479-418-5700
Entry Fee: Free for most of the museum; $15 for special exhibits (Free to members)
Hours: Mon & Wed 11:00-6:00, Thu & Fri 11:00-8:00, Sat & Sun 10:00-6:00, Closed Tuesdays
Since I don't have a drone, I got this aerial photo from Crystal Bridges website. Kindred Spirits by Asher Brown Durand I Chose To Look The Other Way by Michelle Kim The Second Shift by Michelle Achukwu Attack of the 50 ft. Collector by Susan Folwell Alphabet/Good Humor by Claus Oldenburg Dale Chihuly Walking to Boras by Jim Dine Spring Synchromy by Stanton Macdonald-Wright Woman's Head by Pablo Picasso The Terminal by Alfred Stieglitz Radiator Building-Night, New York by Georgia O'Keeffe Excavation at Night by George Wesley Bellows Untitled by Hale Woodruff Juba by Charles Wilbert White Florida Mexicana by Alfredo Ramos Martinez Woman with Gloves by Charles Sebree Burlesque #1 by Max Weber Jimson Weed/White Flower No.1 by Georgia O'Keefe Ambulance Call by Jacob Lawrence Au Café (Symchromy) by Stanton Macdonald-Wright Various Artists Configuration by Manierre Dawson Paris at Twilight by Childe Hassam It is Very Queer, Isn't It? by James Henry Beard School Rules by William Holbrook Beard Professor Benjamin Howard Rand by Thomas Eakins The Embroideress (Portrait of Mrs. Hitchcock) by Gari Melchers Sappho by William Wetmore Story Portrait of Katharine Kelso Cassatt by Mary Cassatt Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife by John Singer Sargent Wakechai (Crouching Eagle) Sauki Chief by Charles Bird King Anne Page by Dennis Miller Bunker Heart in the Cafe/Restaurant
Growing up in the 80's was a lot of fun. We could be maniacs without the fear of getting caught by an idiot with a cell phone. And that's basically how Keith got started, not getting caught creating subway art in the blank advertising spots that graced the walls of the New York underground. Through persistance, talent, and luck, Keith became the epitome of 80's art and pop culture along with the equally talented Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. There were others of course, Schnabel and Koons, etc. but those top three were everywhere. This special exhibit of Keith's 3D work was so impressive and there was a lot of it. I resisted the temptation to take a selfie with every single piece of work they had on display. I still think I have five or six of them! Hope you enjoy these creative and memorable works by one of my faves. Most of his work is "Untitled" so I didn't bother to tag each photo with the name of the work unless it had a title or was a picture of Keith taken by someone else.
Like I said before, going from the Keith Haring exhibit hall to the Grandma Moses collection was like being at a Madonna concert, then going next door to a Pete Seeger folk bluegrass show. Both concerts would be amazing, but you wouldn't necessarily think of putting them together. But that's exactly what the curators at Crystal Bridges did and I applaud them for it. I loved the juxtaposition of pop art and folk art.
I always heard from my older relatives phrases like "She's older than Grandma Moses." Of course, at the time, I had no idea what they were talking about. I figured this Grandma Moses lady was a character out of a book or possibly one of my long lost relatives that lived to be concidered ancient according to the family. It wasn't until college when I started studying art history that Grandma Moses, Anna Mary Robertson Moses, was an actual person that had an impressive amount of art and prestige. Art critics (eye roll here), as they usually do, didn't like her work because is was folksy and wasn't "high brow" enough. Luckily, she didn't care what they thought. We usually shouldn't either! But people around her loved the work and so she kept at it. Even when she couldn't get paintbrushes, she used whatever was around, like rags and matches, to get the paint onto whatever she had to paint on. She was such an American icon, that Norman Rockwell included her in his painting "Christmas Homecoming" that was put on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. Norman and Grandma were in the same boat with the critics, too folksy and commercial. Guess who disagreed with all those art critics. Everyone!
Jonathan Elmore ©2026
