Wal-Mart had to find something to do with all its cash, so they decided to open an art museum near the company’s headquarters, in Bentonville, Arkansas. But what to fill the halls of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art with? How about “Winter Scene in Brooklyn,” a painting by Francis Guy, which shows “a snowy view of Front Street between Main and Fulton streets, an area now under the Brooklyn Bridge,” according to an AP story (mistakenly calling the painter Francis Gay). The Museum of the City of New York writes that the painting is “the most important and compact portion of Brooklyn as it stood in 1820. [It] will forever be invaluable as exhibiting the architectural character of the village at that period; and, in some degree for half a century previous.” Bentonville’s definitely the right spot for that.
‘Winter Scene in Brooklyn’ now in Arkansas [WXVT]
Photo from Museum of the City of New York.