BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) – There are any number of ways to try to gauge the impact – economic and otherwise – Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has had on Bentonville, on Arkansas and beyond since its opening Nov. 11, 2011.
Here are two:
When the museum’s executive director, Rod Bigelow, was in London in July for the opening of the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition at the Tate Modern, everywhere he looked he saw O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, which Crystal Bridges had loaned to the Tate.
“It was incredible to see that image across London, in the Tube, in the newspaper, on books, on banners,” Bigelow said. “It was everywhere.” And on almost every image was the legend “Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas USA.”
The exhibition, the first major exhibition at the Tate after a $394 million expansion, generated dozens of news stories in the United Kingdom, many of them noting that Jimson Weed belonged to Crystal Bridges, which had bought it in 2014 for $44.4 million, the most ever paid for a painting by a woman.
Another mark of the museum’s impact is more tangible. All four Bentonville exits on Interstate 49 are undergoing major improvements to accommodate increasing traffic.
Of course, the population growth necessitating the widening of I-49 from four lanes to six between Fayetteville and Bentonville is occurring throughout northwest Arkansas, not just Bentonville. But Bentonville itself has grown from a population of 35,000 in 2010 to more than 45,000 now, Mayor Bob McCaslin estimated. That’s nearly 30 percent in six years.
Bentonville has become a national, even international, tourist destination, the mayor said, and many of those visitors “have decided to make Bentonville home.”
Alice Walton, the museum’s founder, expresses surprise about Crystal Bridges’ popularity.
“I knew this museum was needed,” she said in response to questions from Arkansas Business (http://bit.ly/2escBIx ). “I grew up here and didn’t really have access to art and I knew we wanted to change that. What I underestimated was how much people wanted to have access to that great art.”
When Walton, daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, announced in 2005 her plans to build an art museum, annual attendance was estimated at 150,000 to 300,000 visitors, the museum noted last week.
“Today, the museum has welcomed over 2.7 million people from all 50 states and six out of the seven continents, including places like Brazil, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Russia, Switzerland, and Zimbabwe. Approximately 50 percent of the visitors are new, which means 50 percent are returning.” Last year, 607,948 people visited the 200,000-square-foot museum, located on 120 acres near downtown Bentonville.
“Our team has done a wonderful job capturing repeat visitors and making it truly a community center,” said Walton, who also chairs the museum’s board. “I think that’s a really important part. I’ve never met anybody in the museum who doesn’t talk about feeling welcomed.”
What Mayor McCaslin called “the transition” began in about 2008, when the city completed the renovation of its downtown square, which is linked to the museum through a series of landscaped trails. He attributed the city’s growth to a number of factors: an abundance of jobs, an excellent education system and a high quality of life.
But Crystal Bridges has also played a significant role in the city’s development. For one thing, the museum every year is bringing hundreds of thousands of people to Bentonville, McCaslin said, an influx reflected in sales tax receipts. And many of those people are in the area for the first time.
“If they’ve never been to Arkansas before, most people – I can say as a native-born Arkansan – have perceptions of Arkansas that are usually inaccurate, so when they get here, they’re somewhat blown away. ‘My goodness, this is a really nice place. It’s pretty. The people are nice. They’ve got all the amenities that I would find in a suburb of any major city in the United States.’”
The museum isn’t the clincher in luring businesses to the area, said Mike Harvey, interim president and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Council. But it helps attract a good workforce, he said, and a good workforce stands atop the list of what attracts businesses to a locale.
Five years after Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened, it’s hard to imagine Bentonville – and Arkansas – without it. It’s the first thing many Arkansans take visiting family and friends to see. It’s a holiday outing and a school field trip.
The announcements of the latest art acquisitions still thrill: O’Keeffe’s Jasper John’s Flag, for which the museum paid $36 million. Jeff Koons’ Hanging Heart (Gold/Magenta), no price disclosed but an almost identical piece sold for $23.6 million.
And a $20 million grant from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced in 2011 makes admission to the museum free, a boon anywhere, but particularly to a poor state.
Rod Bigelow, the museum’s executive director, echoed Alice Walton in describing the museum as “a welcoming place,” a goal it sought from the beginning.
McCaslin, who became mayor in 2007, was at the press conference where Walton announced her plans. He said he had a good idea from the beginning that the museum could be “something really big,” and by the time it opened in 2011 he was certain that “this was a game-changer for northwest Arkansas.”
McCaslin remembers saying, “I think we will see a transformation in our local area, driven a lot by Crystal Bridges. And I think we’re now seeing that. It is a transforming experience.”
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By JAN COTTINGHAM, Arkansas Business
Information from: Arkansas Business, http://www.arkansasbusiness.com
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AP-WF-10-31-16 1919GMT