Three Degrees of Separation: Maier Museum, Wilmerding, Walton, Crystal Bridges

There’s been a persistent rumor in Lynchburg, VA, that Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, who is acquiring American art for her planned Crystal Bridges museum, recently visited the campus of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College to view holdings of the Maier Museum, which the financially strapped college may be putting on the market.
It turns out that the college’s collection has long been well known to Walton’s premier art advisor, John Wilmerding, who is about to retire from his professorship at Princeton University: He was one of the authors for the 1990 catalogue of an exhibition drawn from the Maier Museum’s collection and circulated by Art Services International: American Art, American Vision.
Go figure.