Marking a major milestone in the capital campaign for the new building, today the Arkansas Arts Center officially became the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. While unveiling the museum’s new brand, AMFA leaders announced that the capital campaign supporting the construction of its new museum building has raised $135,944,426, surpassing its previous goal of $128 million.
Scheduled to open in 2022, the institution’s new identity is both a promise for its future and a nod to the past. The Museum of Fine Arts, which opened in Little Rock’s MacArthur Park in 1937, became the Arkansas Arts Center in 1959, and the building underwent several renovations and additions in the latter half of the 20th century. The new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts is currently under construction in MacArthur Park, a project that began in 2016. The Art Deco façade from 1937, bearing the title “Museum of Fine Arts,” will be revealed once again as the north entrance of the new AMFA when it opens in 2022.
“The new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts will offer new opportunities for our community to
experience the visual and performing arts,” Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott, Jr. said. “It also
places Little Rock among the great cultural destinations of the New South – places like Dallas,
Texas; Memphis, Tenn.; Jackson, Miss.; and Bentonville, Ark.”
Watch the recording of today’s announcement and visit the Museum’s new website: www.arkmfa.org.
“Reconnecting the currently incoherent sections of the center is the crown jewel of the project: a thin folded-plate concrete structure, dubbed the ‘blossom.’ It runs atop the center from the north to the south and reaches into MacArthur Park, offering a new axis of connectivity.”
“A powerful combination of natural resources and local initiative is pushing one southern state to the forefront of architectural innovation in the country. . . . In [Arkansas], Studio Gang and SCAPE Landscape Architecture are working together to renovate and extend the Arkansas Arts Center.”