Inviting.
That best describes the new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock, renamed and reopened in late April of 2023 following a four-year, $150-plus million renovation.
The refreshed museum is bright, open and airy. Artworks on view are big, colorful and uplifting.
Featured are striking masterpieces from modern art history’s top names, particularly the Impressionists, who remain the most inviting artists to much of the museum-going public. Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Pierre Auguste Renoir– fine examples of each are on display. The Morisot, in particular, is a knockout; as good as you’ll find.
Diego Rivera’s cubist Dos Mujeres (1914), nearly 7-feet-tall, a large Louise Nevelson assemblage, Elaine de Kooning’s Standing Bull (1958), another massive painting, this one donated to AMFA in 1973 through a gift arranged by the artist after teaching a workshop in the Museum’s studio art school, highlight the debut installation of the permanent collection.
