Alice Walton

Early life and education

Walton was born in Newport, Arkansas. She graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, with a B.A. in economics and finance.

Career

In her early career, Walton was an equity analyst and money manager for First Commerce Corporation and headed investment activities at Arvest Bank Group. She was also a broker for E.F. Hutton. In 1988, Walton founded Llama Company, an investment bank, where she was president, chairwoman and CEO.

Walton was the first person to chair the Northwest Arkansas Council and played a major role in the development of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, which opened in 1998. At the time, the business and civic leaders of Northwest Arkansas Council found a need for the $109 million regional airport in their corner of the state. Walton provided $15 million in initial funding for construction. Her company, Llama Company, underwrote a $79.5 million bond. The Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport Authority recognized Walton's contributions to the creation of the airport and named the terminal the Alice L. Walton Terminal Building. She was inducted into the Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame in 2001.

In the late 1990s, Llama Co. closed and, in 1998, Walton moved to a ranch in Millsap, Texas, named Walton's Rocking W Ranch. An avid horse-lover, she was known for having an eye for determining which 2-month-olds would grow to be champion cutters. Walton listed the farm for sale in 2015 and moved to Fort Worth, Texas, citing the need to focus on the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Bentonville, Arkansas, art museum she founded that opened in 2011.

In his 1992 autobiography Made in America, Sam Walton remarked that Alice was "the most like me—a maverick—but even more volatile than I am."

Art

Walton purchased her first piece of art when she was about ten years old. It was a reproduction of Picasso's Blue Nude she got from her father's Ben Franklin Dime-Store. She and her mother would often paint watercolors on camping trips. Her interest in art led to her spearheading the Walton Family Foundation's involvement in developing Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in the heart of Bentonville, Arkansas. Crystal Bridges, opened in November 2011, is envisioned as a premier venue for a national art institution dedicated to American art and artists, and a place of learning and community.

In December 2004, the art collection of Daniel Fraad and wife, Rita, went up for public auction at Sotheby's in New York. Since almost every collector was at the auction, no one could figure out who on the phone was bidding such high prices. It was later discovered that Walton purchased at least $20 million worth of art that day. She bid for most of the items while on a three-year-old gelding named IC LAD preparing to compete in the first qualifying round of the National Cutting Horse Association Futurity at the Will Rogers Coliseum in Ft. Worth, Texas.

In 2005, Walton purchased Asher Brown Durand's celebrated painting, Kindred Spirits, in a sealed-bid auction for a purported US$35 million. The 1849 painting, a tribute to Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole, had been given to the New York Public Library in 1904 by Julia Bryant, the daughter of Romantic poet and New York newspaper publisher William Cullen Bryant (who is depicted in the painting with Cole). She has also purchased works by American painters Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper, as well as a notable portrait of George Washington by Charles Willson Peale, in preparation for the opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. In 2009 at an undisclosed price, Crystal Bridges museum acquired Norman Rockwell's iconic "Rosie the Riveter" painting for its permanent collection.

John Wilmerding, an advisor and board member to Crystal Bridges said Walton has collected the work of some artists in depth, quietly buying substantial bodies of work by Martin Johnson Heade, Stuart Davis, George Bellows and John Singer Sargent. Walton's attempt to quit smoking led to the purchase of two great smoking paintings by Alfred Maurer and Tom Wesselman. In a 2011 interview, she spoke about acquiring great works by other artists. She described Marsden Hartley as "one of my favorite artists-he was a very complex guy, somewhat tormented, but a very spiritual person, and love the emotion and the feel and the spirituality of his work". She went on to say "and Andrew Wyeth-the mystery and loneliness that is expressed. How do you paint loneliness?"

Political contributions

She was the twentieth largest individual contributor to 527 committees in the U.S. presidential election 2004, donating US$2.6 million to the conservative Progress for America group. During the 2004 election cycle, Progress for America ran advertisements supporting the Iraq war and praising George W. Bush for preventing "another 9/11". As of January 2012, Walton had contributed $200,000 to Restore Our Future, the super PAC associated with Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. Despite hailing from a largely Republican family, Alice donated $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee supporting Clinton and other Democrats, in 2016. The two women met while Clinton was serving as First Lady of Arkansas and was the only woman sitting on Walmart's board.

Personal life

At age 24, Walton was first married in 1974 to a prominent Louisiana investment banker, but the two were divorced two and a half years later. Shortly thereafter she married a contractor who built her swimming pool, but they too quickly divorced.

Family

One of her brothers, John T. Walton, died in a 2005 plane crash, and is survived by his wife Christy Walton. She is a first cousin of Ann Walton Kroenke, Nancy Walton Laurie, and Sybil Robson Orr. Her two brothers, Rob Walton and Jim Walton, still survive.

Sam Walton was her father, Helen Walton was her mother, and James "Bud" Walton was her uncle.

Automobile incidents

Walton has been involved in at least four automobile incidents, one of them being fatal. During a 1983 Thanksgiving family reunion near Acapulco, Mexico, Walton lost control of a rented Jeep and plunged into a ravine, shattering her leg. She was airlifted out of Mexico and underwent more than two dozen surgeries; she is said to suffer lingering pain from her injuries. In an April 1989 incident, she struck and killed 50-year-old Oleta Hardin, who had stepped onto a road. Witnesses stated that Walton was speeding at the time of the accident, but no charges were filed. In a 1998 incident, she was reported to have hit a gas meter while driving under the influence. She paid a $925 fine and served no jail time.

On October 7, 2011, her 62nd birthday, she was again arrested for driving while intoxicated in Weatherford, Texas, after a dinner with friends in Fort Worth. Walton's attorney released a statement acknowledging the incident and expressing regret. The charges were dropped by Texas prosecutors in September 2013 without formal charges being filed.