Alice Walton

Billionaire Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton was convicted Friday on all four counts in a drunken driving case and could be sent to jail for a year when she is sentenced July 2. Walton, worth $6.3 billion and listed by Forbes magazine as America's second-richest woman--behind her mother--could have simply paid $650 to settle the case but chose instead to fight the charges with a pair of attorneys.

The ongoing legal battle surrounding Fisk University's Stieglitz art collection took a significant step toward a conclusion Monday when the Tennessee Supreme Court rejected an attempt to keep the artwork from moving out of Nashville. Fisk University has been trying to sell a 50% stake in the prized art collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum, founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton. The university has been experiencing financial difficulties and sought the sale to help it stay afloat.

Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia has sold a second Thomas Eakins painting, this time to the Wal-Mart heiress who earlier had expressed interest in acquiring another of the artist's masterpieces. Eakins' 1874 "Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand" will go to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., for an undisclosed amount, the university said. The museum is being built by billionaire Alice Walton, daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.

In cultural commentary about the American economy, one company at a time always seems to be the goat. Everything it does is interpreted as evil. In the 1950s it was General Motors. GM's CEO, Charles "Engine Charlie" Wilson, became a national figure of ridicule for telling a congressional committee, "What's good for General Motors is good for America. " Except that he actually said, "For years I thought that what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa" — which is quite a different proposition.

The ongoing legal battle surrounding Fisk University's Stieglitz art collection took a significant step toward a conclusion Monday when the Tennessee Supreme Court rejected an attempt to keep the artwork from moving out of Nashville. Fisk University has been trying to sell a 50% stake in the prized art collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum, founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton. The university has been experiencing financial difficulties and sought the sale to help it stay afloat.

In cultural commentary about the American economy, one company at a time always seems to be the goat. Everything it does is interpreted as evil. In the 1950s it was General Motors. GM's CEO, Charles "Engine Charlie" Wilson, became a national figure of ridicule for telling a congressional committee, "What's good for General Motors is good for America. " Except that he actually said, "For years I thought that what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa" — which is quite a different proposition.

Asher B. Durand made headlines in 2005 for the first time in well over a hundred years, when one of his paintings sold for what was said to be more than $35 million. The sale broke the record for the highest price paid at auction for an American painting and broke a lot of hearts by transferring ownership of the work from public to private hands. Alice Walton bought the 1849 picture, "Kindred Spirits," for the Walton Family Foundation (and its yet-to-be-opened Crystal Bridges Museum)

Thomas Eakins' masterpiece, "The Gross Clinic," which almost left the city until an intense fundraising drive raised about $30 million to keep it, went on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Friday. The iconic 1875 painting will remain at the museum until early spring, when it moves across the city to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the nation's oldest arts institution. The two institutions will share equally in its ownership. Thomas Jefferson University announced Nov.

Leaders in Philadelphia's art, business and political communities are scrambling to raise $68 million in six weeks so a treasured Thomas Eakins masterwork will not leave town. Officials acknowledge that matching the record-setting sum for the lifelong Philadelphian's 1875 painting, "The Gross Clinic," will be a challenge. Under a deal announced Saturday, "The Gross Clinic" will be sold by its owner, Thomas Jefferson University, to a partnership of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Trustees of financially troubled Fisk University in Nashville have agreed to sell half of the university's interest in its modern art collection to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, under construction in Bentonville, Ark., for $30 million. Pending court approval, the joint-ownership agreement would require Fisk and Crystal Bridges -- founded by Wal-Mart heir Alice Walton -- to take equal responsibility for the care, management and public display of the collection.

Asher B. Durand made headlines in 2005 for the first time in well over a hundred years, when one of his paintings sold for what was said to be more than $35 million. The sale broke the record for the highest price paid at auction for an American painting and broke a lot of hearts by transferring ownership of the work from public to private hands. Alice Walton bought the 1849 picture, "Kindred Spirits," for the Walton Family Foundation (and its yet-to-be-opened Crystal Bridges Museum)

Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia has sold a second Thomas Eakins painting, this time to the Wal-Mart heiress who earlier had expressed interest in acquiring another of the artist's masterpieces. Eakins' 1874 "Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand" will go to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., for an undisclosed amount, the university said. The museum is being built by billionaire Alice Walton, daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.

Billionaire Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton was convicted Friday on all four counts in a drunken driving case and could be sent to jail for a year when she is sentenced July 2. Walton, worth $6.3 billion and listed by Forbes magazine as America's second-richest woman--behind her mother--could have simply paid $650 to settle the case but chose instead to fight the charges with a pair of attorneys.

New Mexico This year, New Mexicans mark 100 years of statehood. But much of the state's appeal stems from its human history that goes back much further. (In 2010, Santa Fe celebrated 400 years of cityhood.) Explore here: the adobe architecture and art galleries of Santa Fe; the vintage signage along old Route 66; the lingering hippie vibe of Truth or Consequences. Don't forget the Lightning Field, an art installation outside Quemado where (for $150 to $250 a person) you spend a summer night in a wood cabin and wait to see if lightning will strike one of the 400 tall steel poles outside your door.

THE Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in New Mexico has dropped its lawsuit to claim a 101-piece art collection from Fisk University in Nashville. The Santa Fe, N.M., museum moved to withdraw its lawsuit Tuesday, one day after a judge denied a settlement agreement that would have sent a prominent O'Keeffe painting to the museum for $7.5 million.