Center now Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts
Fundraising hits $136M to pay for overhaul project
The Arkansas Arts Center has rebranded as the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, a call-back to its original name from more than 80 years ago, as construction teams continue to make over the downtown Little Rock museum.
Museum officials on Monday paired the new name’s debut with an announcement that project fundraisers eclipsed their initial goal to pay for the overhaul — raising roughly $136 million, or $8 million more than first sought — and have now set a loftier
target of $142 million.
Officials staged the event atop freshly laid gravel in the museum’s’s courtyard-to-be — in front of the original 1937 Art Deco facade that says “Museum of Fine Arts” — as scaffolding, pallets of bricks and other signs of work-in-progress idled nearby.
Over the course of previous renovations, the facade was incorporated indoors as part of gallery space. The excavation of that entrance, which will be one of two key entryways, is among several hallmarks of the museum’s new design.
“This name reflects our future, but it was carefully chosen with great pride and respect for our past,” said Van Tilbury, president of the museum’s board of trustees, in announcing the change.
Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr., who has called the museum a “beacon of light,” signed a proclamation to change the name. The City’s Board of Directors is expected to formally vote in early February on legislation that would affirm the mayor’s proclamation, city spokesman Lamor Williams said.
City Hall owns the building and the MacArthur Park property on which it sits, and city directors sign off on appointments to the museum’s board of trustees. Little Rock also makes annual maintenance payments to the museum, and voters in 2015 approved hotel taxbacked revenue bonds that will generate $31.2 million for the expansion project.
The nonprofit Arkansas Arts Center Foundation owns the art collection and controls the endowment from which it annually grants money for museum operations.
Efforts to remake the museum are on track to finish on schedule, sometime in spring 2022, officials said.
Construction began in October 2019, but the public-private partnership to redo the museum traces back to 2015. The scale and ambition has repeatedly grown, with the first publicly floated price tag coming in at $46 million.
‘CULTURAL LIVING ROOM’
As they began to plan more specifics, officials grew unimpressed with what they could accomplish with that amount, so they launched a private fundraising campaign with aims of a “transformational” project. Officials elevated the goal to $128 million in May 2019.
New features will include expanded gallery space and a glass-enclosed “cultural living room” overlooking Ninth Street on the building’s north side. A pathway covered by a curving, layered roof will link the building’s north side to the south, where a second entrance spills into MacArthur Park.
The renovation includes expanding the museum’s footprint of the surrounding park and extensive landscaping, with a new garden and cypress trees replacing parking lots. A restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating will face the park.
The architectural design, by Chicago-based Studio Gang, aims to draw in an abundance of natural light throughout the building.
Warren and Harriet Stephens, who have jointly led the capital campaign fundraising committee, announced Monday the project has received pledges close to $136 million.
Warren Stephens said the new target is $142 million, about 11% more than the $128 million plan.
“The project has definitely evolved,” Harriet Stephens said during an interview after the ceremony. “We have expanded our ambition.”
Newly added features include space that will be made available for public rentals — a “glass box” behind the children’s theater and an event lawn, Harriet Stephens said. The kitchen adjoining the “cultural living room” will be larger than first envisioned, as well, to improve catering options for events, she said.
They also spoke of the importance of growing the foundation’s investment fund, saying a larger endowment would allow the nonprofit to increase its annual giving to pay for operating costs, which will rise in the new building.
Not least among the higher costs will be landscaping expenses — the Arts Center’s footprint in MacArthur Park will increase fivefold to 10 acres, they said. New Yorkbased landscape design firm SCAPE has partnered with Studio Gang to better link the museum to its surroundings.
MILLIONS PLEDGED
On top of the $31.2 million commitment from the city’s bond proceeds, Gov. Asa Hutchinson has pledged $5 million in public money from the state’s rainy-day fund toward the project.
The Little Rock nonprofit Windgate Foundation has pledged $35 million, and Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust committed $5 million.
Those commitments are among 21 donors, including Harriet and Warren Stephens, who have given between $1 million and $35 million, Warren Stephens said. Another 55 donors have pledged more than $100,000, and 34 more have committed more than $25,000, he added.
Officials have pitched the museum overhaul as a potential economic and cultural magnet for the state’s capital city. On Monday, they said the new “fine arts” name would better link it to similar museums in the region.
“We strive to improve the quality of life for everyone in Central Arkansas, but we have also set our sights much higher,” said Tilbury, the board of trustees president. “We strive for a new Arts Center that connects Central Arkansas with the region, the nation and beyond.”
The mayor compared the new name with “fine art” museums in Dallas; Jackson, Miss.; and the Crystal Bridges Museum of Fine Art in Bentonville.
“This is a time that we now celebrate Little Rock’s and Arkansas’ past, present and future,” Scott said, also calling the project “yet another catalyst of the New South — on how we focus on arts, entertainment, education and economic diversity.”
BROAD UMBRELLA
Little Rock public affairs and creative economy adviser Scott Whiteley Carter, who serves as the city historian, said the change from “Little Rock Museum of Fine Arts” to “Arkansas Arts Center” in the early 1960s reflected its statewide mission and varied offerings.
At the time, the museum was “on the vanguard of multidisciplinary arts facilities,” he said. Now, Carter said, the term “arts center” generally reflects performing arts centers rather than visual arts.
“The ‘museum of fine arts’ nomenclature serves as a reminder that a large portion of the facility is a visual art museum,” Carter said in an email, noting that the term “fine arts” is a broad umbrella that can include music, theater, dance and other media.
The museum’s 14,000-piece collection is best known for its works on paper, such a drawings and paintings. The museum also runs a children’s theater program and museum school classes. It has long reached statewide, including through a roving “Artmobile” that ferried the museum’s works to communities across Arkansas.
A new logo, which includes a slanted line between “A” and “MFA,” is an ode to sharp angles that will feature prominently in the remade building’s architecture, said Victoria Ramirez, the museum’s executive director.
Officials are planning a series of announcements about museum programs — specifics about museum school offerings and the debut exhibition — in the run-up to the grand opening, currently projected as somewhere between April and June 2022, Ramirez said.
“Museums really can do transformative things for the community,” Ramirez said after the ceremony. “And it doesn’t matter if you don’t like art, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve never come to a museum before — you can come here, and you can come here for free [admission].”