The Metropolitan Museum and National Gallery were jointly outbid, so the painting will be displayed in the future Bentonville museum:
Over the last two or three years Ms. Walton has been a major buyer of American paintings at Sotheby's and Christie's, snapping up works by Winslow Homer, Martin Johnson Meade, Edward Hopper and other artists. But the Durand is expected to be a cornerstone of the new museum's collection.More on Crystal Bridges from the AP and the Wal-Mart Family Foundation's press release.The painting, which depicts the painter Thomas Cole and the poet William Cullen Bryant standing on a rocky ledge overlooking the Catskills, is titled after a phrase in a Keats sonnet and has long been considered one of the finest examples of Hudson River School painting. It was commissioned by Jonathan Sturges, one of Durand's most important patrons, as a gift for Bryant, and it remained in the Bryant family until his daughter, Julia, donated it to the New York Public Library early in the 20th century.
The Walton Family Foundation's museum, to be called Crystal Bridges, takes its name from an inspired glass-and-wood design that traverses a local spring-fed stream. Designed by the Boston-based architect Moshe Safdie, the museum will "present perspectives on the flow of America's history and heritage through the eyes of the nation's most influential artists," according to a statement released yesterday by the Walton Family Foundation.
Posted by Kevin on May, 15 2005 at 03:16 PM
