Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville will use a $17.5 million gift from the Windgate Foundation to support research and programs around crafts and to add craft works to the museum's permanent collection.
The museum will also use the money to create a curatorial position dedicated to crafts, the museum said in a news release Wednesday -- the ninth anniversary of Crystal Bridges' opening.
The new initiatives on crafts will begin with the opening of an exhibition called "Crafting America." Organized by Crystal Bridges, the exhibition will run from Feb. 6 through May 31.
Rod Bigelow, the museum's executive director and chief diversity and inclusion officer, said the funds "will further the work and impact of the 'Crafting America' exhibition and expand conversations about American art, history and culture."
"Craft is important for Crystal Bridges and aligns with our mission because it is an inherently inclusive field that has been more accessible to women, people of color, immigrants, indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities," Bigelow said.
Crystal Bridges' chief curator, Austen Barron Bailly, said that "with the new curatorial role and acquisition funds, we can embrace the field with new energy and keep advancing craft's dynamic influence on American art and culture."
The newly created job was listed on Crystal Bridges' website Wednesday as the Windgate curator of craft, described as the museum's first endowed curatorial position.
Job duties include developing the museum's craft collection through acquisitions and gifts; creating new installations, temporary exhibitions and public programs; partnering with the School of Art and Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; and working "with artists, peers, scholars and collectors to advance research, scholarship and professional development."
Both Crystal Bridges and the Little Rock-based Windgate Foundation aim to "raise the profile and visibility of craft by creating broader access" to it, the museum said.
The funding will help the museum "champion artists, scholars and collectors, and facilitate partnerships across the field," the museum said. Craft will also become part of Crystal Bridges' educational programming.
"Contemporary crafts in America are the backbone of the creative community, enabling artists to develop the skills and physically produce the work they envision," said Robyn Horn, chairwoman of the Windgate Foundation's board of directors.
The "Crafting America" exhibition will showcase more than 100 works in ceramics, fiber, wood, metal, glass and "unexpected materials." All date from the 1940s to the present.
Crystal Bridges' associate curator Jen Padgett and Glenn Adamson, a guest curator and scholar of craft, design history and contemporary art, organized the exhibit.