America’s Most Inviting Art Museum

Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Cultural Living Room.

Iwan Baan before usage

Inviting.

That best describes the new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock, renamed and reopened in late April of 2023 following a four-year, $150-plus million renovation.

The refreshed museum is bright, open and airy. Artworks on view are big, colorful and uplifting.

Featured are striking masterpieces from modern art history’s top names, particularly the Impressionists, who remain the most inviting artists to much of the museum-going public. Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Pierre Auguste Renoir– fine examples of each are on display. The Morisot, in particular, is a knockout; as good as you’ll find.

Diego Rivera’s cubist Dos Mujeres (1914), nearly 7-feet-tall, a large Louise Nevelson assemblage, Elaine de Kooning’s Standing Bull (1958), another massive painting, this one donated to AMFA in 1973 through a gift arranged by the artist after teaching a workshop in the Museum’s studio art school, highlight the debut installation of the permanent collection.

The Museum shows off its emphasis on drawings and works on paper with examples from Georgia O’Keeffe, Andrew Wyeth, Paul Signac, John Marin, Henri Matisse, Willem de Kooning, Stuart Davis, Norman Lewis, Lee Krasner, Marsden Hartley, Roy Lichtenstein, Elizabeth Catlett, Edward Hopper, a fascinating deconstructed sketchbook from Arthur Dove and a wonderous Egon Schiele nude, that one utterly unexpected.

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Oh, and two Paul Cézannes. And a Gustave Courbet. And Thomas Hart Benton.

The museology equivalent of an all-star game, if that all-star game included the best players from the 100 years spanning roughly 1860 to 1960.

Curators aren’t trying to put over their thesis work by highlighting obscure artists unfairly left out of the canon or niche movements, instead, they’ve brought familiarity and accessibility to what, for many, can be unfamiliar and intimidating spaces. But everyone can like and recognize a Monet. On the walls are names people have heard of.

The install is heavy on figurative paintings and landscapes, not so much pure abstraction.

Again, inviting.

Big artwork from major figures that are vibrant, lively and approachable. Catchy. Dare it be described as “fun?” In the right hands, art can be that too, and it is here.

The 4-year-old showing off his floss dance to the security guard–who showed the good sense to let him do so–on the day Forbes.com visited for this review was having a ball at the art museum with his mom and sister.

AMFA’s choice of contemporary artworks are equally suitable for making a great first impression.

Kerry James Marshall, Derek Adams, Robert Colescott, Marie Watt (Seneca), Titus Kaphar, Bisa Butler, Howardina Pindell. Essential figures in the genre.

Each of them is African American, except for Watt, a Native American.

The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts achieves a level of diversity in work on view for an historic museum that could only result from a complete reboot, which the renovation provided for. Black artists share equal footing with white artists. Native American, Asian American, Latin American artists receive more than token representation. Ryan RedCorn’s (Osage) monumental photograph of a Plains Cree mother and daughter just inside the gallery door makes a dramatic statement.

Women artists are equal to men.

For every white face represented staring back from the walls, there’s a Black face.

Inviting.

It’s working, too. On the day of my visit, AMFA galleries were filled by a racially diverse audience the likes of which is rarely seen in these spaces.

The entire presentation seems to say, “Come on in. Look around. This is art. It’s for you.”

Wall text is concise.

There are no ropes or alarms or barriers placed in front of the art.

Visitors were smiling. Talking. Joking.

The building and installation fostered that.

Supporting this invitation, admission to the AMFA is free. Parking is free.

The museum front and back intentionally open onto shaded park space, welcoming passersby to pop in, or giving youngsters a quick exit to run around and play outside.

The museum is open from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5:00 PM on Sundays. I am unaware of any other art museum in the country with that many extended nighttime hours, AMFA recognizing working people should be afforded the opportunity to see art as well, and not just on the weekend.

The most inviting art museum in America.

A New Old Museum

In 1914, a group of Little Rock women formed the Fine Arts Club with a mission of bringing the arts to Arkansas. The Fine Arts Club planted the seeds for the Museum of Fine Arts, which was built by the Works Progress Administration and opened in 1937. It became the Arkansas Arts Center in 1959.

Unifying the original building and eight subsequent additions, the redesign from MacArthur Foundation “genius award” winner Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects and Kate Orff of SCAPE Landscape Architecture, herself a “genius” grant winner, the first for a landscape architect, increases indoor space almost 50 percent and adds 10 acres of new outdoor grounds.

As part of the architectural project, which began in 2016, the original Art Deco façade from 1937 bearing the name “Museum of Fine Arts” has been revealed once again, part of the north entrance of the new building. Outside that entrance you’ll find Henry Moore’s bronze sculpture Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge. If it looks familiar, you may be recognizing it for its co-staring role in “The Breakfast Club.” Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Esteves and Anthony Michael Hall clowned the sculpture–a copy–in scenes taking place in the high school library.

The redesign features a restaurant, gift shop, 350-seat performing arts center and expansion of the Windgate Art School which boasts multiple studios for students of all ages and skillsets with a faculty comprised of working artists in drawing, painting, ceramics, glass, metals, woodworking, printmaking, and more. An exhibition for Chakaia Booker headlines gallery space outside the classrooms.

A Black woman.

AMFA included a New Media Gallery in its redesign. This space allows for the display of audio-visual works designed for projectors, television monitors, speakers, and even interactive digital platforms, allowing programming to reflect the myriad ways artists work in the 21st century. Sun Xen initiates it.

A Chinese man.

The delightful Art Perch, a large window in the northernmost gallery with built-in seating, gives arriving guests a framed “sneak peek” of featured artworks displayed inside. Within the gallery, the window provides a view of the outdoor landscape and a comfortable place to rest and view the art. Natasha Bowdoin’s vivid, oversized, cartoony floral arrangements fill the space.

Another female artist.

Inviting.

A Cultural Living Room on the second floor with views onto the grounds acts as a gathering space. Here, AMFA welcomes guests to informally gather, relax and socialize with comfortable lounge furniture and a coffee and cocktail bar. A living room for the city.

Inviting.

Sustainability was a key consideration throughout. Most prominently, the distinctive design of the roof shades and cools the building, reducing energy use, while also catching stormwater and channeling runoff into a series of native plant rain gardens intentionally placed and planted to filter and disperse the water and attract pollinators and migratory birds. The landscape design also incorporated the planting of 250 new native trees which will mature to combine with existing trees on site to form a shade canopy covering the grounds.

Make a Weekend of it

The William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum has served as Little Rock’s top draw for visitors since opening in 2004. The buildings and grounds occupy formerly abandoned industrial brownfield sites and have spurred development in the city’s long overlooked “east of I-30” area along the Arkansas River.

The icon of Little Rock tourism, however, remains Little Rock Central High School. Here, America’s most beautiful high school served as backdrop for America’s ugliest display of racist, segregationist hostility to court mandated equality in public education, and, simultaneously, a courageous action of self-worth from nine Black teenagers who walked a gauntlet of screaming, hostile bigots–many future classmates–to enter the building which was previously whites only.

The Little Rock High School National Historic Site interprets this history for the public. A visit to the school, where classes are still held, should be compulsory for American citizens.

Two miles from the high school, Mosaic Templars Cultural Center further shares Little Rock’s Black History. Many of its exhibits are currently undergoing a renovation with a full return to programming expected for fall of 2023.

Less than a half mile from Mosaic Templars and suitable for walking when the weather allows, Fat Jaws Soul Food & Southern Eats cooks up comfort food that would make Big Mama proud. Chef Will’s on site much of the time, you can’t miss him, he’s about 6-foot-5 and one of the few people who can finish off the enormous portions without needing a to-go box. His loaded brunch biscuit with gravy, bacon, egg and cheese–have him add hot sauce on top–is a big eater’s dream.

Biscuit lovers hungry for more on Day 2 should visit The Root Café in Little Rock’s lively South Main (SOMA) district less than a mile from the museum. Try getting there by 10:00 AM; not long after, the brunch rush starts backing up out the door.

The Historic Arkansas Museum’s “We Walk in Two Worlds” exhibition does a fine job introducing visitors to the area’s indigenous inhabitants–the Caddo, Osage and Quapaw. Arkansas was central to Indian Removal and the Trail of Tears. Each of the so-called “Five Civilized Tribes” of the American southeast–Seminole, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Creek–traveled through the state on their way to Indian Country.

Those with an extreme interest in Native American history should also check out the Sequoyah National Research Center on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. More of a research facility than public exhibition space, the Center houses the largest collection of Native American written material in the world and if you pop your head in, staff are happy to show you around.

Arkansas calls itself the “Natural State” and visiting the Little Rock Audubon Center on the outskirts of town–on a site where a segregated housing project once stood–shows why. Paved and unpaved walking paths across a prominence with commanding views of the surrounding area are a feast for the senses any time of year. The trails are open sunup to sundown.

Finally, don’t leave town without enjoying a sampling of Little Rock’s robust craft beer culture. Lost Forty Brewing serves up suds ranging from hoppy IPA’s to fruity radlers and its pizza’s dang good, too. One block from the original tap room, Camp Taco at Lost Forty combines summer camp memories with beer, tequila and–you guessed it–tacos.