The New York Times says Crystal Bridges spent $150m on art last year. Several of the purchases have been announced but a combination of announcements and auction sleuthing reveal these additional works:
Jasper Johns’s renowned “Flag” painting from 1983, which the museum bought at Sotheby’s in November for $36 million (outlasting three other ardent bidders), and four works by Louise Bourgeois, including her monumental bronze, steel and marble spider sculpture “Maman.” The Bourgeois purchases, concluded in December 2014, together are worth an estimated $35 million to $40 million. […]
Crystal Bridges has made smaller purchases that remain unannounced, including a painting by Ghada Amer, according to her dealer, Cheim & Read. At the auction where “Flag” was sold, the anonymous bidder who bought the Johns — now identified as Ms. Walton — also won Mark Rothko’s “No. 21 (Red, Brown, Black and Orange)” for nearly $45 million; a marble-and-steel Bourgeois sculpture titled “Distant Figures” for $1.8 million; and a Joseph Cornell box, “Untitled (Palais de Cristal)” for $665,000. Only the Cornell has so far gone into the museum’s collection, officials there said, but Ms. Walton has in the past indicated that she will give much of her own collection to the museum eventually. She declined to be interviewed.
Source: Crystal Bridges Museum to Announce Major Purchases – NYTimes.com
