Report Highlights Increased Attendance and Financial Stability as Museum Announces Major Exhibition for Spring 2027
The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA) on Monday released its 2025 fiscal year report during the museum’s annual meeting attended by the AMFA Foundation Board of Directors, AMFA Board of Trustees, City of Little Rock leadership, and other AMFA supporters and staff members. The report, available online, details key metrics from January 2025 to December 2025.
Meeting Highlights:
- Strong Attendance: AMFA increased the number of Arkansas cities, states, and international countries of guests, with a total attendance of 138,805.
- Financial Growth and Stability: AMFA completed the fiscal year with the highest revenue in museum history at $13.6 million.
- Spring 2027 Exhibition: Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World, organized by the National Portrait Gallery in London, opens at AMFA on February 5, 2027.
Since its grand opening in 2023, the museum continues to expand its calendar of programs, exhibitions, and performances. In 2025 alone, the museum offered 578 art classes, 110 children’s theatre shows, and 108 free family programs. 2025 was also a year for two blockbuster exhibitions: Rivera’s Paris, which opened to rave reviews, and Architects of Being: Louise Nevelson and Esphyr Slobodkina, which has since traveled to the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, and the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut.
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, AMFA has launched “More Than a Museum,” a campaign in support of community outreach and cultural tourism, that will continue to define the museum’s messaging and programming strategies.
“’More Than a Museum’ is about more than just visiting the museum – it is about momentum. When we introduced AMFA to the world and catapulted the museum to the next level, we changed the cultural landscape of Little Rock,” declared AMFA Chief Executive Officer Dr. Victoria Ramirez. “People of every age are looking for true connection and authentic experiences, and art museums like AMFA provide just that.”
Stan Hastings Receives 2026 Winthrop Rockefeller Memorial Award
Terri Erwin, AMFA Foundation Director and chair of the Winthrop Rockefeller Memorial Award committee, announced Stan Hastings as this year’s recipient of the Winthrop Rockefeller Memorial Award. This prestigious award honors individuals who exhibit extraordinary dedication and support for the arts and AMFA.
Awardees are selected by a distinguished committee of past recipients, who, by virtue of their own recognition, exemplify the highest standards of public service through the arts.
Hastings has long embodied that standard at AMFA. He joined the museum’s board of trustees in 2018 and has since served as vice-president, president, and presiding chair, and now serves as chair.
Erwin said, “His in-kind support and generosity have preserved AMFA’s programmatic budget, allowing the museum to apply the savings to mission-focused efforts that serve the community.”
The George O’Connor Endowment
In honor of George O’Connor, a consistent and generous champion of the museum, his family established an endowment to support AMFA, reflecting decades of dedication to the museum. O’Connor served on the AMFA Board of Trustees from 1992 to 2000, then as foundation director beginning in 2001 and later as chair of the investment committee.
According to AMFA Foundation Chair Michael Mayton, “This endowment will provide essential funds to support AMFA, making George’s imprint on the museum he loved — and the endowment he so closely monitored as investment chair — everlasting.”
The late Curtis Finch, Jr. was also honored with a tribute during AMFA’s annual meeting. Curtis served on the AMFA Board of Trustees from 1982 to 1992 and held two terms with the Foundation, first in 1984 and again from 1998 to 2012. Together with his wife Jackye, Finch donated more than 160 works to the AMFA Foundation Collection over the last several decades and most recently sponsored the exhibition Will Barnet: Seasons of Life.
Gifts of Art
AMFA received gifts of artwork from three major collections this year. Collectors Tobin Sparling and Michael Mistric gifted over 80 works from their collection. Collector and gallery owner Martin Muller gifted 119 works to AMFA’s permanent collection. Finally, the museum received works from the collection of John and Robyn Horn. In total, the Horns have gifted over 250 works from their collection, a curated selection of which are currently on view in Material Nature: Gifts from the John and Robyn Horn Collection.
Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World On View February 5 – May 30, 2027
Organized by the National Portrait Gallery in London and curated by photography historian and contributing editor to Vogue, Robin Muir, Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World is the first exhibition dedicated solely to Beaton’s groundbreaking contributions to fashion and portrait photography.
Known as “The King of Vogue,” Cecil Beaton (1904 – 1980) was an extraordinary force in 20th-century England and America. Renowned as a fashion illustrator, Oscar-winning costume designer, social caricaturist and writer, Beaton imaginatively elevated fashion and portrait photography into an exuberant art form.
Beaton captured portraits of some of the 20th century’s most iconic figures, including film stars Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marlon Brando; members of the British royal family, like Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret; and writers and artists, such as Truman Capote, Jean Cocteau, and Salvador Dalí.
AMFA is one of only two U.S. venues for the exhibition, and its presentation will exclusively feature period fashions by the designers and department stores featured in Beaton’s photographs, including Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Irene, Christian Dior, Hattie Carnegie, and Bonwit Teller.
Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World is organized by the National Portrait Gallery, London, and presented by the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts.
Admission to AMFA is always free. For more information about AMFA, please visit arkmfa.org.
About the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts
Founded in 1937, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts is the largest cultural institution of its kind in the state, offering a unique blend of visual and performing arts experiences. AMFA is committed to featuring diverse media and artistic perspectives within its permanent collection as well as through rotating temporary exhibitions. AMFA’s international collection spans eight centuries, with strengths in works on paper and contemporary craft, and includes notable holdings by artists from Arkansas, the South, and across the United States and Europe.
With a vibrant mix of ideas, cultures, people, and places, AMFA extends this commitment to diversity through the innovative Windgate Art School, a dynamic children’s theatre and performing arts program, and community-focused educational programs for all ages. Located in Little Rock’s oldest urban green space, MacArthur Park, AMFA’s landmark building and grounds are designed by Studio Gang and SCAPE, in collaboration with Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects.