Art News

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Announces Portrait, Sculpture

BENTONVILLE, ARK.- The beauty of glorious attire and what it communicates to others is celebrated in two works of art announced by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Mrs. Theodore Atkinson, Jr. (1765), an oil portrait by John Singleton Copley, considered one of the most influential painters in colonial America, augments an exceptional collection of portraits by Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent. Dress Impression with Wrinkled Cowl (2007) by Karen LaMonte, a leading figure among American artists using glass in large-scale sculptures, builds on the collection’s emerging strength in contemporary art. Working more than 240 years apart, both artists captured the essence of their subject in very different ways. As was typical in 18th century portraiture, Copley expressed Mrs. Atkinson’s elevated social status by painstakingly depicting the lavish details of her attire – the