Creation of Arts Center - Fayetteville


Beginning in 1947, Durst, Kenneth Osborne, head of the Music Department, Virgil Baker, head of the Drama Department, and John Williams, an architect then in the College of Engineering, met frequently to discuss the form and goals of the Fine Arts Center they envisioned.  Lewis Webster Jones, formerly president of Bennington College, became President of the University of Arkansas that same year and shared their ambitions for the Arts Center.  Jones and the University Board of Trustees eventually persuaded the Arkansas legislature in 1948 to appropriate $1,000,000 for a “classroom building” which would become the Arts Center. 

After funds for the Arts Center were approved, the search for an architect began, limited by the law or custom that the architect be from Arkansas.  President Jones expressed concern to David as to whether there was an Arkansas architect with the appropriate experience for the job.  David recalled reading about Edward Durell Stone -- who was born and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas and studied at the University of Arkansas.  He was architect for the Radio City Music Hall (1932) and Museum of Modern Art (1939) in New York City and many other notable buildings around the world.[1]  Stone was also a long-time friend of J. William Fulbright, United States Senator for Arkansas.[2] 

Stone was invited to the University over a Homecoming Weekend where he met with many old friends and classmates.  Stone was enthusiastic about the project and made a favorable impression on the people with power to appoint him as architect.  Stone was appointed as the architect for the Arts Center in March 1948, with Harralson and Mott, of Fort Smith, Arkansas as Associated Architects. 

The Arts Center was officially dedicated on May 5, 1951, after it was completed and operating.  The Arts Center was designed by Stone in a modern, international style with a flat roof and a combination of brick and large glass walls.  It included room for the Departments of Art, Architecture (headed by John Williams), Dance, Music, and Theatre, a library, a concert hall with a classical organ and eight mobiles by Alexander Calder, a friend of Stone, an art exhibition hall with glass walls at ground level, a theatre with wall reliefs by Gwen Lux, and modern furnishings and furniture throughout, including those by Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen, and Hans Knoll.[3] 

The opening events for dedication of the Arts Center included an art exhibition curated by David of fifty-five works loaned by museums around the country, including Max Beckmann, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Joan Miro, Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, and others.  The Art Center’s theatre presented the premiere of the play Acres of Sky, based upon a novel by Arkansas novelist Charles Morrow Wilson.  In the concert hall, Carl Weinrich played a recital on the new classical organ. 

​The University of Arkansas Arts Center was the first of such combined art facilities established at a university.  Many others have followed at other campuses.   The Arts Center became the center of arts study and performance at the University.[4] 

​[1]           Hicks Stone, "Edward Durell Stone: A Son's Untold Story of  a Legendary Architect (Rizzoli 2011); www.edwarddurellstone.org (Work, 1937); www.moma.org/about/architecture; www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=1776. 

​[2]           http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=f000401; www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=1652.

[3]           www.arkansaspreservation.com/historic-properties/_search_nomination_popup.aspx?id=2489; Time Magazine, May 18, 1953; “University of Arkansas Art Center in Fayetteville by architect Edward D. Stone,” Architectural Forum:  The Magazine of Building, September 1951.

​[4]           http://fulbright.uark.edu/finearts.php.