State museum gallery to be named for Jeannette Rockefeller

Jeannette Edris Rockefeller (inset), the former Arkansas first lady, will have a gallery named for her in the new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts building in Little Rock, shown here in an aerial photo taken from the north. (Main photo, courtesy of Tim Hursley; inset, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette file photo)
Jeannette Edris Rockefeller (inset), the former Arkansas first lady, will have a gallery named for her in the new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts building in Little Rock, shown here in an aerial photo taken from the north. (Main photo, courtesy of Tim Hursley; inset, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette file photo)


A gallery in the new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts building will be named for Jeannette Edris Rockefeller, a museum benefactor and former Arkansas first lady, said Harriet and Warren Stephens, co-chairs of the museum's capital campaign.

"It was decided years ago to do this," Harriet Stephens said Friday. "He and I had conversations about it back in 2019."

Jeannette Edris Rockefeller was the second wife of former Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller.

Winthrop and Jeannette Rockefeller were significant supporters of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts decades ago, when it was known as the Arkansas Arts Center.

The Stephenses talked about the Rockefeller gallery name on Friday in response to questions about a bequest from Anne Bartley of San Francisco, Jeannette Rockefeller's daughter.

In 1959, in cooperation with the museum's Fine Arts Club, the Little Rock Junior League and the city of Little Rock, the Rockefellers agreed to help launch a statewide capital campaign to enlarge the museum significantly and expand its programs, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

A gallery named for Jeannette Rockefeller was established in the former museum in the early 2000s.

Bartley changed her mind and decided not to leave $500,000 to the museum in her will after assuming that a gallery in the new museum wouldn't be named for her mother, the Arkansas Times blog reported on Wednesday.

Museum director Victoria Ramirez sent a letter to Bartley on March 3, 2021, saying a plaque in the new museum would honor patrons who had named spaces in the former museum.

"We plan to honor your mother's previously named space with the following listing on this special plaque: Jeannette Edris Rockefeller," according to the letter from Ramirez.

[CORRESPONDENCE: Read the letters on the donation » arkansasonline.com/123finearts/]

On Sept. 13 of this year, Bartley wrote to Ramirez saying her letter of March 3, 2021, "negates" the terms of her 1998 agreement with former museum director Townsend Wolfe.

In a May 21, 1998, letter, Wolfe thanked Bartley for a pledge of $100,000 to be paid over the next five years and for $500,000 that would be designated in her will for the "Jeannette Edris Rockefeller Permanent Collection Gallery."

But in Rockefeller's case, besides her name being on the plaque in the new building, the plan called for there to be named gallery as well, said the Stephenses.

Regarding Bartley's 1998 agreement with Wolfe, Warren Stephens said, "We didn't even know about it. But it's the right thing to do. Particularly when you go through the history in the archives is to continue with a named gallery for Jeannette Edris Rockefeller."

"This is important to us," said Harriet Stephens. "You don't forget where you came from."

Ramirez's May 21, 2021, letter to Bartley didn't mention that a gallery would also be named for her mother in the new museum.

Reached by email on Friday, Bartley said she was in a meeting that day and wouldn't be able to respond to questions until next week.

Harriet Stephens said her husband tried to call Bartley after the museum received her Sept. 13 letter, but nobody returned his call.

Warren Stephens said he wrote to Bartley last month to assure her that a named space in the new museum would honor her mother, and that decision was made years ago. He said he hadn't heard back from Bartley as of late Friday afternoon.

"I communicated it to her brother Bruce at least a year and a half ago," said Warren Stephens, who is also chair of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation.

"Told him that she would have permanent recognition in the new museum, and it was recently communicated to Anne," said Harriet Stephens.

Regarding Ramirez's May 21, 2021, letter to Bartley, Harriet Stephens said it was "a standard letter that Victoria sent to all the people who had named spaces in the old museum to tell them about that plaque." She said similar letters went to about 10 people.

Ramirez emailed the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette late Thursday saying she was responding to questions in her capacity as Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation secretary.

"From the onset of the transformation of the Arkansas Arts Center into the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, we have been ever mindful of the significant contributions of its supporters," Ramirez wrote in the email. "This includes honoring the legacy of Jeanette Edris Rockefeller and her work on the Center's behalf in a featured named gallery, and on a special plaque, shared with others who had named spaces in the former building. The decision to honor Mrs. Rockefeller in the new space was made in 2020, and fully independent of any financial contribution.

"Our recognition of Mrs. Rockefeller, formally and prominently, was fully conveyed in a series of communications to her daughter, Anne Bartley, as well as to her son. For more than a year and a half, and as recently as two weeks ago, Museum representatives reaffirmed a commitment of significant recognition of Mrs. Rockefeller to her children. The decision to proceed with a named gallery and a special plaque, as part of the reimagined Museum, is not, nor has it ever been, tied to a financial contribution."

Harriet Stephens said they did a lot of research to recognize people who had made gifts long ago.

"We wanted to recognize it but we also need to recognize that there are people who are giving gifts to this campaign and have opportunities to recognize them," she said. "We wanted to honor frankly the people in the past that had been very influential and how the museum got to this point today, and that certainly included Jeannette Edris Rockefeller."

According to the museum's website, https://arkmfa.org, "The new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts is being realized through a public-private partnership, starting with a $31 million commitment from the City of Little Rock generated by a hotel tax revenue bond. Contributions from generous private donors have more than quadrupled the public commitment -- and fundraising is ongoing.

"The $155 million capital campaign, Reimagining the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts supports the construction of a new Museum designed by renowned architecture firm Studio Gang and award-winning landscape architecture firm SCAPE while strengthening the critical funding needed for transition, opening, and future operations."


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