Arkansas Arts Center

The Arkansas Arts Center is an art museum in Little Rock. The museum was founded in 1960, but goes back to the Fine Arts Club of Arkansas was founded in 1914. The collection of the Arkansas Arts Center includes paintings, graphics, and design objects. Another field of activity of the museum is the art of education, what it offers, among other art classes.

History

The Arkansas Arts Center goes back to the Fine Arts Club of Arkansas, founded in 1914, whose members supported the later founding of the museum. In 1937 a Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock was established. 1957 organized a nationwide state- wide campaign donations the museum with the help of the later Governor Winthrop Rockefeller and his wife Jeannette Rockefeller. A year later, the museum was reorganized by resolution of the city back and renamed the Arkansas Arts Center, so that 1960 is considered the founding year. 1963 included the Arkansas Arts Center already five galleries, a theater, classrooms and an art library. In addition, special exhibitions were organized. The purchase of works of art was limited to regional art and prints by major artists.

After a period of low support from the city and society 1968, some restructuring and programmatic innovations made ​​under the direction of the new director Townsend Wolfe, so that the financial support increased again. 1971 decided the museum management is only to dedicate at acquisitions drawings and thus put a special emphasis in the collection. A year later, the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation was created, which is independent of the city and part of the collection.

1975, the 3200 -square-foot Rockefeller Gallery was built to expand the exhibition space. 1982 an extension of the museum was completed. So the studios and the exhibition space have been extended. Three years later, followed by the opening of the Arkansas Arts Center Decorative Arts Museum, which housed the collection of design objects. 1989, the 1300 -square-foot Strauss Gallery was built as an addition to Rockefeller Gallery.

In 1998, the first sod for a 30,000-square was placed major expansion and renovation of 12,000 square meters. The re-opening was celebrated with a series of special events between the 11th and 20th February 2000. 2002 was adopted after 34 years Townsend Wolfe and sat Ellen A. Plummer as a new director. A year later the Decorative Arts Museum was closed and taken over contemporary design objects in the Arkansas Arts Center.

Collection

The collection of the Arkansas Arts Center has a focus on drawings from Europe and America that emerged in a period from the Renaissance to the present. For example, drawings by Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe, Rembrandt van Rijn, Paul Cézanne, Jackson Pollock and Peter Paul Rubens are in the museum. Furthermore, it provides 135 watercolors and drawings by Paul Signac, the sketchbook E of Arthur Dove and 100 post- Minimalist drawings.

In addition, the museum displays paintings by Francesco Bassano, Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, Paul Cézanne, Luigi Loir, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Kees van Dongen, Édouard Vuillard, Odilon Redon, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera and Andrew Wyeth, sculptures by Roy Lichtenstein, Henry Moore and Louise Nevelson. In addition, visitors can view prints by Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt van Rijn and James McNeill Whistler. The design collection includes modern and contemporary ceramics, glassware, jewelry, wooden objects, metalwork, baskets and tea. They were designed and created by artists such as Dale Chihuly, Albert Paley, Peter Voulkos and Dorothy Gill Barnes.

Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem: River landscape

Berthe Morisot: The flute players

Paul Cézanne: Farmhouse in Montgeroult