LITTLE ROCK — The Fort Smith Regional Art Museum will open Jan. 19 with an opulent, 16th-century Italian-themed gala and a preview of the museum’s inaugural exhibition, “The Secrets of Mona Lisa.”
The Mona Lisa images are part of a larger exhibition called “Da Vinci: An Exhibition of Genius,” though the Fort Smith museum will be the first to showcase “The Secrets of Mona Lisa” as a stand-alone show, said the museum’s executive director, Lee Ortega.
“It’s perfect for Fort Smith,” Ortega said. “It combines art, science and pop culture to a certain extent. Because the Mona Lisa is such a popular and recognizable painting, it’s a good fit for our first show.
“We wanted to appeal to a wide audience,” she said.
Organized by Australiabased Grande Exhibitions, the exhibition features research by French engineer Pascal Cotte, known for developing a high-definition camera that allows viewers “to see a painting as it looked when it was created,” Ortega said. One of the 25 “secrets” unveiled by Cotte is that Leonardo da Vinci’s original Mona Lisa included eyelashes and eyebrows.
“I am an engineer and scientist, so for me all has to be logical. It was not logical that Mona Lisa does not have any eyebrows or eyelashes,” Cotte told the health and technology website LiveScience. “I discovered one hair of the eyebrow.”
Cotte will attend the Jan. 19 gala and take guests through his findings about the Mona Lisa. Those attending a $250-per-person reception beforehand will have the opportunity to talk one on one with Cotte. Tickets to the main event are $100 each.
The museum will open to the public the next day.
Before the gala, Cotte will spend two days giving tours of the exhibition to area students, including some from the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. The exhibit can be seen at the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum through March 17.
It’s taken three years and $3 million to ready the museum to open at 1601 Rogers Ave., what some consider the gateway to downtown. Arvest Bank sold the building to the museum for $1 in 2009. The building’s overhaul included the installation of a new heating and air-conditioning system to maintain a climate-controlled atmosphere for exhibiting art.
Renovations to the art deco building were made possible in part by a large anonymous donation, though Ortega declined to reveal the size of the gift.
She and her staff will continue fundraising to help with operations and maintenance costs.
“Just because we’re opening the doors, it’s really just the beginning,” she said.
The museum was founded in 1948 under the Arkansas Association of University Women and evolved into a project of the Associated Artists of Fort Smith, which exhibited art and held classes in various locations around the city. From 1960 until 2010, the former Fort Smith Arts Center was in the Vaughn-Schaap House in the city’s historicBelle Grove District.
Ortega, who arrived in Fort Smith via New York and Miami in 2011 to steer the arts center’s transformation to a museum, said the intentis to be all-inclusive, offering diverse and meaningful programming and exhibitions for children and adults from all walks of life.
The idea is to serve the community on a larger scale, she said.
The museum’s new 16,000-square-foot home is three times the size of the Vaughn-Schaap House, but the available display space is five times greater. The building features main-floor and upstairs galleries and meeting/conference space in the basement.
The exterior speaks for itself, Ortega said.
“The landmark building is an excellent example of midcentury design,” she said. “It has very good bones and is made of solid cement and steel.”
Museum board member Dolores Chitwood describes the museum’s architecture as “very artful and unique.”
“There’s no other building like it in that area,” said Chitwood, who owns a life and health annuity insurance agency. “We have preserved the architecture of the outside just as it was. That’s important from an art standpoint and a heritage standpoint.”
Nearby businesses include an Indian restaurant, a convenience store, two strip malls and a dry cleaner. The museum’s canopied frontdoor opens onto Garrison Avenue.
“We’re excited to be where we can be the gateway to Garrison Avenue,” Chitwood added.
In tandem with the Mona Lisa exhibition, the museum will stage a show of local and regional artists’ works of portraiture from the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum’s permanent collection. Ortega also has secured an exhibition titled “Female Portraits from the Arkansas Arts Center Collection” featuring pieces by photo-realist Chuck Close, Austrian-Irish fine artist Gottfried Helnwein and the late Will Barnet.
An exhibition of fiber art organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts is planned for spring and the museum will host its first juried invitational in the summer.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 01/02/2013