Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Founder Alice L. Walton To Be Honored at Newark Museum Legacy Gala
Newark, NJ (PRWEB) March 21, 2015 -- Alice L. Walton, Founder and Chair of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, located in Bentonville, Arkansas, will receive the national John Cotton Dana Medal for Visionary Leadership in Museums at the Newark Museum’s Legacy Gala. The event will take place on Saturday, May 9 in the Newark Museum’s galleries and Alice Ransom Dreyfuss Memorial Garden.
The Newark Museum is one of the most influential museums in the United States and the Gala is its major fundraising event, celebrating the Museum’s world-class collections of over 218,000 objects representing American art, Decorative arts, the arts of Asia, Africa, Native America, ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, and the natural sciences.
The Gala also recognizes the Newark Museum’s role as a national leader in museum education – the event provides essential support for the Museum’s education initiatives that serve more than 90,000 school children and thousands of families each year.
Gala Chair Andrew Richards, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Swander Pace Capital, Newark Museum Director and CEO Steven Kern, and the Board of Trustees will present Alice L. Walton with the first national John Cotton Dana Medal for Visionary Leadership in Museums. Named after the Museum’s visionary founder and foremost pioneer of modern museums, the medal represents Dana’s philosophy that museums are for all people, for all time and that museum collections have the “power to educate, inspire and transform.” Walton embodies this philosophy and is being honored for making masterpieces of American art accessible to visitors of all ages and backgrounds, and ensuring that Crystal Bridges Museum’s collections are in service to school children throughout the region.
“Like John Cotton Dana a century ago, Ms. Walton created an institution of excellence and relevance to the community it serves,” said Kern. “Crystal Bridges Museum provides a transformative experience for all ages.”
Featured special exhibitions for the evening include Royals & Regalia: Inside the Palaces of Nigeria’s Monarchs, Recent Photographs by George Osodi, the acclaimed Nigerian photographer; and the creative and artistic video installation Hassan Hajjaj: My Rock Stars. All of the Museum’s collections will be on view during the Gala including the nationally recognized Picturing America galleries, Korea: Land of the Diamond Mountains exhibition, and the 1885 National Landmark Ballantine House, which showcases the Decorative arts collection.
For further information on the Newark Museum Legacy Gala, please call 973-596-6579 or visit http://www.newarkmuseum.org.
Lisa Batitto, Newark Museum, +1 (973) 596-6638, [email protected]
Share this article