Wal-Mart Heiress Alice Walton Finds $800 Million More for Her Crystal Bridges Museum
by ARTINFO, May 5, 2011
Media-shy Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton has already poured vast amounts of her own money into her Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, funding the $50 million Moshe Safdie-designed project and gathering a wide-ranging collection of colonial-to-contemporary art to display in the space when it opens on November 11. Now, the Bentonville, Arkansas, museum has announced that it has received an additional $800 million endowment from the Walton Family Foundation (on whose board of directors Alice Walton sits) to fund the institution “in perpetuity.”Arkansas Business reports that the museum’s director, Don Bacigalupi, has stated that $350 million of the endowment will go toward the institution’s operating expenses, estimated at around $16-20 million per year. This annual allowance will, according to a statement from Crystal Bridges, place the museum “in the company of institutions such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the St. Louis Art Museum and the Phoenix Art Museum.” The institution’s acquisitions coffers will receive $325 million in padding from the endowment, while $125 million will be set aside for the future upkeep of the museum (a “rainy day fund,” according to officials). To read more.