London's "Independent" Has Strange Way of Defending Walton

It must be my week to attract attention from the British: The Independent of London today published an article, The Woman Who Put the Art in Wal-Mart, that begins with an allusion to my Wall Street Journal article on Alice Walton's collecting practices, and ends with a mention of her desire to acquire works from the Maier Museum's collection.

Like Walton's local defenders, the Independent charges her critics with snobbery:

The greatest unspoken objection is, of course, that no self-respecting East Coast art snob would be seen dead in rural Arkansas.

In my case, at least, there's a good reason why this supposed bias is "unspoken": Whether or not I ever make it to Bentonville (and I hope I do), I have nothing against great art's being gathered there. It might even make more sense than assembling the great masterpieces of world culture on an earthquake faultline. (Now I'm in trouble with the Getty!) I think if there's any snobbery in this, it's the other way around---Arkansas razzing New York (or, in my case, New Jersey).

Meanwhile, under the guise of taking Walton's side, the Independent dredges up elements of her past that I knew about but deemed irrelevant to my topic, which was her artworld activities. My comments, while strong, were directed specifically at her art-collecting practices and their effect on the artworld. I may have been harsh, but I hope I was fair.