Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art - Collaboration With Other Museums and Institutions

Collaboration With Other Museums and Institutions

In the past few years, Crystal Bridges has been in the news for numerous arrangements and partnerships with other art museums to share collections.

In 2006, the museum partnered with the National Gallery of Art in an attempt to purchase Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic from Thomas Jefferson University. Under the terms of the agreement, the two museums agreed to pay a record $68 million, but the university gave Philadelphia 45 days to match the offer. The Philadelphia Museum of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts agreed to collectively match the offer and the painting remained in Philadelphia. The purchase forced both museums to sell some of their best Eakins pieces including Cowboy Singing and the The Cello Player. In April 2007, Crystal Bridges acquired another Eakins belonging to Thomas Jefferson University entitled Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand for an estimated $20 million

Walton held talks with Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia in spring of 2007. The college was exploring selling part of the Maier Museum of Art's collection, but voted instead to sell select items from the collection at Christie's.

In 2006, Fisk University agreed to sell a 50% stake in a 101 piece Stieglitz collection to Crystal Bridges for $30 million. The collection was donated to the university by Georgia O'Keeffe in 1949. This agreement became tied up in a legal battle between Fisk and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in New Mexico, but the museum withdrew its lawsuit. The Tennessee Attorney General attempted unsuccessfully to stop the sale. In October 2010, a judge ruled that a 50% stake in the collection could be sold to Crystal Bridges if modifications to the contract were made so that Fisk University could not lose its interest in the collection, nor could the joint venture holding ownership of the collection between Fisk University and Crystal Bridges be based in Delaware (or outside Tennessee Courts). The modified agreement would allow the works to stay at Fisk University until 2013 and then begin a two-year rotation with Crystal Bridges. In April 2012, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision to allow the sale to move forward. A few months later on 2 August, The Davidson County Chancery Court approval a Final Agreed Order that establish joint ownership between Fisk and Crystal Bridges through the newly established Stieglitz Art Collection, LLC. The operating agreement required Fisk to set aside $3.9 million of the $30 million sale proceeds to be used to establish a fund for the care and maintenance of the collection at the Carl Van Vechten Gallery at Fisk. The court dispute cost Fisk $5.8 million in legal fees.

Crystal Bridges has announced a four-year collaboration with the musée du Louvre in Paris, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. The resulting exhibitions, featuring works from the collections of all four partners, will be seen in Paris, Bentonville, and Atlanta, beginning in 2012.