Art



Collection

Acquisitions

In 2015, Crystal Bridges acquired 49 works of art; 37 private sale purchases, 4 auction purchase, 1 commission, and 7 gifts. By classification 13 prints, 13 paintings, 8 sculptures, 3 drawing, 2 watercolors, 5 photographs, 1 textile, 2 mixed media works, and 2 installations were acquired.

Incoming Loans:

Total loans onsite in 2015: 726 artworks/objects from 16 lenders.

New loans: 2 artworks from 2 lenders

Renewed: 4 artworks from 3 lenders

Outgoing Loans:

In 2015 Crystal Bridges had 14 objects on loan to 20 institutions:

  • Peel Compton Foundation, Bentonville:
    • Artwork: Paul Manship, Group of Bears
      On general exhibition at Compton Gardens
  • Louvre Museum, Paris, France; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; and High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
    • Artworks: DeScott Evans, Daisies; John Haberle, Small Change; Raphaelle Peale, Corn and Cantaloupe
      Exhibition: American Encounters: Simple Pleasures of Still Life
  • Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA; San Antonio Museum; San Antonio, TX; and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
    • Artwork: Jamie Wyeth/Cornflakes
      Exhibition: Jamie Wyeth
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
    • Artworks: Tom Uttech, Enassamishhinjijweian
      Exhibition: The Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art
  • De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA
    • Artwork: Keith Haring, Moses and the Burning Bush
      Exhibition: Keith Haring: The Political Line
  • National Portrait Gallery, London, England; and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
    • Artwork: John Singer Sargent, Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife
      Exhibition: Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends
  • Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; and Reynolda House Museum, Winston-Salem, NC:
    • Artwork: Maria Oakey Dewing/Rose Garden
      Exhibition: The Artist’s Garden
  • High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
    • Artwork: Andy Warhol, Coca-Cola [3]
      Exhibition: The Coca Cola Bottle: An American Icon at 100
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
    • Artwork: Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Little Joe with Cow
      Exhibition: The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi
  • Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA
    • Artwork: Samuel Morse, Marquis de Lafayette
      Exhibition: Lafayette: An American Icon
  • Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, WY; and Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK
    • Artwork: John Mix Stanley, The Buffalo Hunt
      Exhibition: Painted Journeys: The Art of John Mix Stanley
  • Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
    • Artwork: Jim Hodges, When We Stay
      Exhibition: Art AIDS America
  • Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
    • Artwork: Jamie Wyeth, Orca Bates
      Exhibition: Wyeth: Andrew and Jamie

Conservation

Conservators Jim Wright examined several recent acquisitions. Three paintings, In the Corner by George Benjamin Luks, Archbishop James Frederick Wood by Thomas Eakins, and The Chelsea Girl by James McNeill Whistler, were treated in Jim’s studio and returned.

All of the works on paper from the Alfred Stieglitz collection were sent to the Conservation Center in Chicago in April, 2014 for assessment and treatment. Treatment was completed and the works were returned to Crystal Bridges in June, 2015.

Paul Benson, object conservator at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, dusted Jeff Koons’s Hanging Heart, examined four works, and provided recommendations for re-installing Robert Indiana’s LOVE to prevent water damage.

Conservator Paula Hobart visited to treat Robert Rauschenberg’s The Tower and Nancy Grossman’s Car Horn. She also completed a condition assessment of Fayum-Re by Nancy Graves.

Conservator Robert Pringle examined and treated the access door to the base of Luis Jimenez’s Vaquero.

Yasuko Ogino and Carmen Bria from the Western Center for the Conservation of Fine Arts made a four-day trip to Crystal Bridges to complete treatments and examinations for a total of 71 paintings. They treated 31 paintings. They also completed examinations and minor treatments for the 29 paintings in the Alfred Stieglitz Collection and examined 11 recent acquisitions, including Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed / White Flower No. 1, providing condition assessments and treatment recommendations.

Conservator Nathan Sutton made a visit to Crystal Bridges and made condition reports on 12 works in the permanent collection.

Outdoor sculpture maintenance:

Conservator Paula Hobart cleaned eight sculptures and provided recommendations for future maintenance. She also examined Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abstraction and provided treatment recommendations. Conservator Joe Rogers from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art also visited the museum to clean six of the outdoor sculptures.

Digital Initiatives:

2015 continued the integration of eMuseum with 784 works available to museum staff and the public by the end of the year. Additionally, as of December 31, 15,183 collections-related images have been uploaded to the museum’s digital asset management system, MediaBeacon.



Exhibitions






Library

Collection

Books Purchased     702

Books Received        695

Books Cataloged      3,103

Usage

Catalog searches: 16,405

Library visitors: 14,003

Books counted used: 3,763

Books checked out by staff: 723

Major Gifts

Dr. Charles Hine, Executive Director of the Dali Museum, gifted two rare contemporary artist books: the altos (1991) and Early Auden (1991), by the artist Richard Tuttle.

Jackie Silverman, art dealer in Los Angeles, gifted a collection of 59 boxes of auction catalogs (Christie’s and Sotheby’s) from the 1970s-1990s. These years are not currently available in digital form and cannot be found elsewhere in the region.

Scholarship

The Reese Teacher Fellowship, established in 2013, was awarded to Anne Wenzel, language arts teacher at Arkansas Arts Academy in Rogers, Arkansas. Ms. Wenzel received an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in Writing/Journalism from Johns Hopkins University. Her BA in English is from Georgetown University.

Wenzel’s research project, A Sense of Wonder: Our Transcendental Inheritance explores connections between the Transcendentalists and works in Crystal Bridges’ contemporary art collection, paying particular attention to how the literary and visual arts both emphasize the role of the individual and observer in shaping experience.