The Arkansas Museum Of Fine Arts: America’s Most Inviting Art Museum

A New Old Museum

In 1914, a group of Little Rock women formed the Fine Arts Club with a mission of bringing the arts to Arkansas. The Fine Arts Club planted the seeds for the Museum of Fine Arts, which was built by the Works Progress Administration and opened in 1937. It became the Arkansas Arts Center in 1959.

Unifying the original building and eight subsequent additions, the redesign from MacArthur Foundation “genius award” winner Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects and Kate Orff of SCAPE Landscape Architecture, herself a “genius” grant winner, the first for a landscape architect, increases indoor space almost 50 percent and adds 10 acres of new outdoor grounds.

As part of the architectural project, which began in 2016, the original Art Deco façade from 1937 bearing the name “Museum of Fine Arts” has been revealed once again, part of the north entrance of the new building. Outside that entrance you’ll find Henry Moore’s bronze sculpture Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge. If it looks familiar, you may be recognizing it for its co-staring role in “The Breakfast Club.” Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Esteves and Anthony Michael Hall clowned the sculpture–a copy–in scenes taking place in the high school library.

The redesign features a restaurant, gift shop, 350-seat performing arts center and expansion of the Windgate Art School which boasts multiple studios for students of all ages and skillsets with a faculty comprised of working artists in drawing, painting, ceramics, glass, metals, woodworking, printmaking, and more. An exhibition for Chakaia Booker headlines gallery space outside the classrooms.

A Black woman.

AMFA included a New Media Gallery in its redesign. This space allows for the display of audio-visual works designed for projectors, television monitors, speakers, and even interactive digital platforms, allowing programming to reflect the myriad ways artists work in the 21st century. Sun Xen initiates it.

A Chinese man.

The delightful Art Perch, a large window in the northernmost gallery with built-in seating, gives arriving guests a framed “sneak peek” of featured artworks displayed inside. Within the gallery, the window provides a view of the outdoor landscape and a comfortable place to rest and view the art. Natasha Bowdoin’s vivid, oversized, cartoony floral arrangements fill the space.

Another female artist.

Inviting.

A Cultural Living Room on the second floor with views onto the grounds acts as a gathering space. Here, AMFA welcomes guests to informally gather, relax and socialize with comfortable lounge furniture and a coffee and cocktail bar. A living room for the city.

Inviting.

Sustainability was a key consideration throughout. Most prominently, the distinctive design of the roof shades and cools the building, reducing energy use, while also catching stormwater and channeling runoff into a series of native plant rain gardens intentionally placed and planted to filter and disperse the water and attract pollinators and migratory birds. The landscape design also incorporated the planting of 250 new native trees which will mature to combine with existing trees on site to form a shade canopy covering the grounds.

Make a Weekend of it

The William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum has served as Little Rock’s top draw for visitors since opening in 2004. The buildings and grounds occupy formerly abandoned industrial brownfield sites and have spurred development in the city’s long overlooked “east of I-30” area along the Arkansas River.

The icon of Little Rock tourism, however, remains Little Rock Central High School. Here, America’s most beautiful high school served as backdrop for America’s ugliest display of racist, segregationist hostility to court mandated equality in public education, and, simultaneously, a courageous action of self-worth from nine Black teenagers who walked a gauntlet of screaming, hostile bigots–many future classmates–to enter the building which was previously whites only.

The Little Rock High School National Historic Site interprets this history for the public. A visit to the school, where classes are still held, should be compulsory for American citizens.

Two miles from the high school, Mosaic Templars Cultural Center further shares Little Rock’s Black History. Many of its exhibits are currently undergoing a renovation with a full return to programming expected for fall of 2023.

Less than a half mile from Mosaic Templars and suitable for walking when the weather allows, Fat Jaws Soul Food & Southern Eats cooks up comfort food that would make Big Mama proud. Chef Will’s on site much of the time, you can’t miss him, he’s about 6-foot-5 and one of the few people who can finish off the enormous portions without needing a to-go box. His loaded brunch biscuit with gravy, bacon, egg and cheese–have him add hot sauce on top–is a big eater’s dream.

Biscuit lovers hungry for more on Day 2 should visit The Root Café in Little Rock’s lively South Main (SOMA) district less than a mile from the museum. Try getting there by 10:00 AM; not long after, the brunch rush starts backing up out the door.

The Historic Arkansas Museum’s “We Walk in Two Worlds” exhibition does a fine job introducing visitors to the area’s indigenous inhabitants–the Caddo, Osage and Quapaw. Arkansas was central to Indian Removal and the Trail of Tears. Each of the so-called “Five Civilized Tribes” of the American southeast–Seminole, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Creek–traveled through the state on their way to Indian Country.

Those with an extreme interest in Native American history should also check out the Sequoyah National Research Center on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. More of a research facility than public exhibition space, the Center houses the largest collection of Native American written material in the world and if you pop your head in, staff are happy to show you around.

Arkansas calls itself the “Natural State” and visiting the Little Rock Audubon Center on the outskirts of town–on a site where a segregated housing project once stood–shows why. Paved and unpaved walking paths across a prominence with commanding views of the surrounding area are a feast for the senses any time of year. The trails are open sunup to sundown.

Finally, don’t leave town without enjoying a sampling of Little Rock’s robust craft beer culture. Lost Forty Brewing serves up suds ranging from hoppy IPA’s to fruity radlers and its pizza’s dang good, too. One block from the original tap room, Camp Taco at Lost Forty combines summer camp memories with beer, tequila and–you guessed it–tacos.