Susan Catherine Moore Waters’ painting “Portrait of a Girl and Her Dog in a Grape Arbor” and Devorah Sperber’s thread installation “After the Last Supper” have two things in common. Both works of art were made by women, and both are in the collection of the embryonic Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.
Paired as they are in the museum’s press release today, they also symbolize the dual nature of founder Alice Walton’s purchases for the museum, with one foot in 18th century portraiture and the other in contemporary (but not aggressively so) pieces.
Waters (1823-1900) supported her family as an intinerant painter after her husband became ill, working in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to the press release. The museum bought the Waters painting, a 19th century piece, at auction in Boston earlier this month for $41,475.
Detroit artist Devorah Sperber used 20,736 spools of thread to create “After the Last Supper,” a 29-foot-long, 85-inch high triptych that turns da Vinci’s painting on its head, reverses it and pixillates it. An acrylic sphere positioned in front of the installation allows the viewer to see it right side up and as da Vinci painted it. The work, created in 2005, is touring the country. Read the artist’s statement on the work here.
In the press release, museum director Don Bacigalupi referenced other recently publicized contemporary works in the Crystal Bridges collection in describing Sperber’s work, saying it “resonates with James Turrell’s interest in color and perception, and with Mary McCleary’s method of constructing an image with found materials.”
The press release said the museum will make monthly announcements of what’s in its permanent collection.
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