Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

While in Branson we took a lovely side-trip to Bentonville, AR, about two hours' drive south and west, near the Missouri-Arkansas border. Driving up and down VERY steep roads, through hills and hollers we saw some beautiful country. And did I take a single photo? No! You'll just have to take my word for it - it was a beautiful drive on a beautiful day. Bentonville is the home town of Sam Walton, so as you might expect there was a Wal-Mart center you could tour, but which we did not. Our destination was the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Crystal Bridges is the brain-child of Sam Walton's daughter, Alice L. Walton. The world reknown Boston architect, Moshe Safdie, designed the 201,000 sq. ft. museum on a site around two ponds on 120 acres of land formerly owned by the Walton family. It is very contemporary in style and fits so perfectly into the landscape.

The buildings are of curved glass, wood, concrete.

The grounds are lovely and boast of 3.5 miles of hiking and walking trails, along with commissioned pieces of sculptured art. The silver tree was especially stunning!

We had a great curried chicken salad for lunch in the on-site restaurant called "eleven". I asked a server about the significance of the name.  The museum opened on 11-11-11 at 11 am, hence the restaurant name. This mirror-polished stainless steel heart with transparent gold color coating hangs from the restaurant ceiling. The magenta grosgrain ribbon is fashioned out of stainless steel. It's very LARGE and beautiful.

The museum contains works by American artists from the Colonial era to present, with largest concentration of works coming from the 19th and 20th centuries. We spent four hours and still didn't get to the last exhibit room. Our legs and feet were DEAD.  There are some pieces of sculpture but most are framed pieces.

Two pieces that I especially loved are the following:

The Reader by Mary Cassatt

Rosie the Riveter by Norman Rockwell

Unlike her predecessors who set out to put great works on display in cultural capitals like New York and Boston, Ms. Walton's mission was to bring "high art to middle America here in this town of 35,000 that is best known as the home of Wal-Mart." That she has certainly done!

A couple pieces of trivia ... In 2005 Ms. Walton began to buy works of art specifically for the museum and was often one the mysterious anonymous buyers at auctions and galleries where great sums of money were paid.  She paid a reported $4.9 million for Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter!

Ms. Walton began to seriously think about building an art museum on family land in the late 1990s and began to bring it up at family meetings held three times a year. Since she has no children she felt she needed the backing of her nieces and nephews, who would have inherited the land. "That decision brewed for a year and a half", she said, before there was unanimous agreement.

We truly enjoyed this art experience and I imagine we'll visit again. Well worth the drive!!