Winthrop Rockefeller's major contribution to the arts in Arkansas was the development of the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, which opened in 1963. Rockefeller served as vice chairman for a fundraising campaign, raising over $600,000 in statewide and personal donations from the Rockefeller family. The opening exhibit featured a notable collection of European works from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rockefeller family. The opening exhibit featured a notable collection of European works from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rockefeller was also instrumental in the creation and funding of an Artmobile to take art into rural areas of the state. Rockefeller's wife, Jeannette, was a strong presence at the Arkansas Arts Center, serving as president of the board of trustees. The support of the Rockefellers is memorialized today through the Winthrop Rockefeller Memorial Award, the Winthrop Rockefeller Memorial Gallery, and the Jeannette Edris Rockefeller Memorial Gallery.
Rockefeller's work in preserving American heritage began before he came to Arkansas and continued at his home on Petit Jean. At a national level, in 1952 Rockefeller joined the board of directors of Colonial Williamsburg, a project dedicated to preserving to preserving Virginia's eighteenth century capital city and originally funded by his father John D. Rockefeller, Jr. In Arkansas, Rockefeller set up a Museum of Automobiles on Petit Jean Mountain-which is still there today-in 1964.
Research materials related to arts and heritage are located principally in Record Group I and Record Group X, the files of Jeannette Rockefeller:
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- Record Group I includes files on Colonial Williamsburg and the Arkansas Arts Center (AAC).
- Jeannette Rockefeller's activites with the AAC are located in Record Group X. The Rockefellers also renovated the Governor's Mansion, and those files are also located in Record Group X.