Crystal Bridges Marks 15 Years With a Major Expansion

3 min read

Fifteen years ago, Alice Walton opened the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art on 134 acres of land in Bentonville, Arkansas. Now it rivals the most prominent museums in the country in popularity, with 800,000 visitors in 2025. This weekend, Crystal Bridges will unveil a massive 114,000-square-foot expansion designed by architect Moshe Safdie that includes 29,000 square feet of new gallery space. This will allow the museum to host more traveling exhibits, better highlight its permanent collection, and become more accessible to visitors. Crystal Bridges has also acquired and commissioned a significant number of pieces from Indigenous artists, including Jeffrey Gibson, Raven Halfmoon, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and Addie Roanhouse, led by Jordan Poorman Cocker, the museum’s curator of Indigenous art.

One of the new gallery spaces.

Walton, the daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, is a longtime art collector and the museum began with her collection. “It’s hard to overstate how catalytic Crystal Bridges has been for the entire region and really, for the state. Alice catapulted Bentonville onto the global arts scene. Crystal Bridges was founded on Alice’s idea that great art belongs to everyone and people in the middle of the country should have access to world-class art,” says Olivia Walton, chair of the board.

The new galleries are connected to the original one via a bridge.

“Growing up in Arkansas, I think Alice felt this as well, but we certainly didn’t have access to the power of art,” says Tom Walton, Alice’s nephew. Part of Crystal Bridges’s aim has been taking a deeper look at what defines high art and increasing attention to both Indigenous art and craft. “I’ve been focused on building a bigger and bigger tent for what art is. Who’s to say craft shouldn’t be shoulder to shoulder with the great American masters?” asks Olivia. “After all, who had access to oil paint and art school? The truth is indigenous artists have been shaping the country’s cultural identity for generations; their work is not adjacent to American history; it really is central to it.”

A piece from the Keith Haring show.

Along with expanding the notion of who a museum artist is, Crystal Bridges also wants to expand who a museumgoer is. Beyond the museum, the campus offers education programs, summer camps, and a splash pad. “We have created areas throughout the museum where we have tactile hands-on opportunities. There are listening stations and comfortable seating throughout where people can just sit down and take a pause. There are lots of hands-on moments,” says Austen Barron Bailly, the museum’s deputy director, curatorial affairs. “One of the most important things is comfortable seating throughout. We’ve just made it more beautiful, more accessible. It was one of the number one things that our community advisory council told us. It’s like, if you can’t feel comfortable in the space, you’ve lost half the battle.”

A learning lab.

Safdie, who designed both the original building and expansion, has been part of the creation of Crystal Bridges since the beginning. “It’s really a dual vision. Really, Alice did not want anyone else to add onto this building. [But] when she contemplated a 50-year strategic plan and looked at Moshe’s age and her age and the growing Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas community, and the vision to develop the collection in new ways, expand our school tour, she was like, ‘Okay now, let’s do it now,’” says Austen.

One of the first exhibitions in the new space is “Keith Haring in 3D,” which focuses on the artist’s work in sculpture and other mediums outside painting. Barron Bailly thinks that showing a new side to a very well-known artist touches the mission of Crystal Bridges.

A gallery on the bridge.

“There’s not been a real understanding of Haring’s compulsion to create three-dimensional work or art in the round and to transform everyday objects of all shapes and sizes into art through his designs and his application of shapes and colors to cribs and high chairs and motorcycles and fashion. Our philosophy about access is coupled with a notion that art can be the everyday, that art is vital to our lives and that it is something that we don’t need to see as separate and apart and fancy and only for special kinds of museum galleries,” she says.

The art world understands more now about what Crystal Bridges wants to achieve. “People early on thought we were just trying to compete with the Whitney and we’re not,” says Olivia. “We’re really reimagining what an American art museum can be.”