Kansas City Art Institute
Encyclopedia
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
s and design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
founded in 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
.
KCAI is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design
National Association of Schools of Art and Design
The National Association of Schools of Art and Design , founded in 1944, is an accrediting organization of colleges, schools and universities in the United States. The organization establishes standards for graduate and undergraduate degrees. Member institutions complete periodic peer review...
(NASAD), the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design
Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design
The Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design is a non-profit consortium of 41 leading art and design colleges in the United States and Canada. All AICAD member institutions have a curriculum with full liberal arts and sciences requirements complementing studio work, and all are...
(AICAD) and the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. It has about 75 faculty members and some 600 students.
KCAI offers the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, in which a comprehensive liberal arts program is complemented by emphasis in one of the following studio majors: Animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
, Ceramics
Ceramics (art)
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
, Design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
, Fiber
Fiber
Fiber is a class of materials that are continuous filaments or are in discrete elongated pieces, similar to lengths of thread.They are very important in the biology of both plants and animals, for holding tissues together....
, Painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, Photo & New Media
New media
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...
, Printmaking
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
, and Sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
. Majors in Art History
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
as well as Studio Art with an Emphasis in Creative Writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
are also available.
History
The school started in 1885 when art enthusiasts formed the "Sketch Club" with the purpose of "talking over art matters in general and to judge pictures." Meetings were originally in private homes and then moved to the Deardorf Building at 11th and Main in downtown Kansas City.The club had its first exhibition in 1887 and 12 benefactors stepped forward to form the Kansas City Art Association and School of Design.
In 1927 Howard Vanderslice
Howard Vanderslice
Howard Vanderslice was a Kansas City, Missouri businessman who donated the land that forms the campus of today's Kansas City Art Institute.Vanderslice was born in Great Crossing, Kentucky in Scott County, Kentucky....
purchased the August R. Meyer residence, a Germanic castle entitled Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
and its 8 acres (3.24 ha) estate at 44th and Warwick Boulevard adjacent to the planned Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its neoclassical architecture and extensive collection of Asian art....
. A Wight and Wight
Wight and Wight
Wight and Wight, known also as Wight & Wight, was an architecture firm in Kansas City, Missouri consisting of the brothers Thomas Wight and William Wight who designed several landmark buildings in Missouri and Kansas....
addition was added to the building. The residence was later renamed "Vanderslice Hall" and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
along with another building on the campus—Mineral Hall. The campus has since expanded to 15 acres (6.07 ha).
In 1935 painter Thomas Hart Benton
Thomas Hart Benton (painter)
Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States...
left New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to teach at the school. Among the artists Benton influenced as a teacher at KCAI were Frederic James
Frederic James
Frederic James was an American painter who specialized in watercolors. He was associated with the Regionalist art movement.-Early life:...
, Margot Peet
Margot Peet
Marguerite Munger Peet was an American painter. She did not have a far-reaching artistic reputation during her lifetime as she did not often exhibit her work in public. Her family found over 430 of her paintings after her death, and she has been the subject of three major retrospectives in the...
, Jackson Lee Nesbitt
Jackson Lee Nesbitt
Jackson Lee Nesbitt was an American artist. Nesbitt was born in McAlester, Oklahoma and studied at the Kansas City Art Institute off and on from 1933 to 1941, working primarily with famed Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton and printmaker John de Martelly...
, Roger Medearis
Roger Medearis
Roger Medearis was an American Regionalist painter. He was a student of Thomas Hart Benton while at the Kansas City Art Institute in the late 1930s and took up the technique of egg tempera painting, a rediscovered medium popular with Regionalists...
, Glenn Gant
Glenn Gant
Glenn Gant was a painter who was best known for his Regionalist and American Scene paintings.Gant was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1911. He began his art career at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1930, and he studied under famed Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton in the mid- to late 1930s...
, and Delmer J. Yoakum
Delmer J. Yoakum
Delmer J. Yoakum was an American fine artist, oil and watercolor painter, designer, serigrapher, Disneyland and Hollywood motion picture studio scenic artist.-Early life:...
. Though Benton brought attention to the Art Institute, he was dismissed in 1941 after making disparaging references to, as he claimed, the excessive influence of homosexuals in the art world.
In 1977, the Kansas City Renaissance Festival
Kansas City Renaissance Festival
The Kansas City Renaissance Festival is a Renaissance fair held each fall in Bonner Springs, Kansas. Each year the fair begins on Labor Day weekend and continues for seven weekends, open on Saturdays and Sundays as well as Labor Day and Columbus Day. The faire began in 1977 as a benefit for the...
was founded as a benefit for the school, which it remained until sold to a for-profit company in 1999. In 1992 the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri. The core of the museum's permanent collection is the Bebe and R. Crosby Kemper Jr. Collection, a gift of the museum's founders. The collection includes works created after the 1913 Armory Show to works by present-day...
opened on the west side of the campus.
Notable faculty
- Thomas Hart BentonThomas Hart Benton (painter)Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States...
- Leader of RegionalistRegionalism (art)Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930s. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing technological advances, to create scenes of rural life...
art movement; KCAI teacher, 1935–1941 - Elaine de KooningElaine de KooningElaine de Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist, Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era and editorial associate for Art News magazine...
-- Painter, visiting critic - Dale EldredDale EldredDale Eldred was an internationally acclaimed sculptor renowned for large-scale sculptures that emphasized both natural and generated light.-Biography:...
- Sculptor, environmentalist - Glenn GantGlenn GantGlenn Gant was a painter who was best known for his Regionalist and American Scene paintings.Gant was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1911. He began his art career at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1930, and he studied under famed Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton in the mid- to late 1930s...
- RegionalistRegionalism (art)Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930s. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing technological advances, to create scenes of rural life...
painter, student of Benton, KCAI teacher - Frederic JamesFrederic JamesFrederic James was an American painter who specialized in watercolors. He was associated with the Regionalist art movement.-Early life:...
- Watercolor painter, KCAI teacher
Notable alumni
- Martin ArnoldMartin ArnoldMartin Arnold is an experimental filmmaker known for his obsessive reworkings of found footage. He is also a founding member of the Austrian film distributor Sixpack Film. Arnold studied psychology and art history at the University of Vienna...
- Filmmaker - Robert BerdellaRobert BerdellaRobert Andrew "Bob" Berdella was an American serial killer in Kansas City, Missouri who raped, tortured and killed at least six men between 1984 and 1987.-Early life:...
, serial killer - Dan ChristensenDan ChristensenDan Christensen, the American abstract painter, was born in Cozad, Nebraska on October 6, 1942, he died in Easthampton, New York on January 20, 2007....
- Painter - Nick Cave (performance artist)
- Richard CorbenRichard CorbenRichard Corben is an American illustrator and comic book artist best known for his comics featured in Heavy Metal magazine...
- Comic book creatorComic book creatorA comic book creator is someone who creates a comic book or graphic novel.The production of a comic book by one of the major comic book companies in the U.S... - John Steuart CurryJohn Steuart CurryJohn Steuart Curry was an American painter whose career spanned from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting life in his home state, Kansas...
- Painter - John de MartellyJohn de MartellyJohn Stockton de Martelly was a lithographer, etcher, painter, illustrator, teacher and writer.John de Martelly was born in Philadelphia and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, in Florence, Italy, as well as the Royal College of Art in London...
- RegionalistRegionalism (art)Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930s. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing technological advances, to create scenes of rural life...
printmaker, KCAI printmaking teacher - Walt DisneyWalt DisneyWalter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
- Animator, media entrepreneur (attended Saturday morning classes as a child) - Angela DufresneAngela DufresneAngela Dufresne is a painter originally from Connecticut who is based in Brooklyn.Dufresne received a BFA in 1991 from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, in 1998....
- Painter - Ellen FullmanEllen FullmanEllen Fullman is a composer, instrument builder, and performer. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area...
- Inventor of long string instrumentLong string instrumentThe long string instrument is an instrument where the string is of such a length that the fundamental transverse wave is below what we can hear as a tone . If the tension and the length result in sounds with such a frequency the tone becomes a beating frequency ranging from a short reverb to... - Jon GnagyJon GnagyJon Gnagy was a self-taught artist most remembered for being America's original television art instructor, hosting You Are an Artist, which began on the NBC network. On May 16, 1946, Jon Gnagy was the first "act" on the first television program broadcast from the antenna atop the Empire State...
, - Nationally syndicated television art teacher - Michael GreathouseMichael GreathouseMichael Greathouse is an American artist based in New York.Greathouse was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He is an artist and film maker....
- Video artist - April GreimanApril GreimanApril Greiman is a contemporary designer. "Recognized as one of the first designers to embrace computer technology as a design tool, Greiman is also credited, along with early collaborator Jayme Odgers, with establishing the ‘New Wave’ design style in the US during the late 70s and early...
- Graphic designer - Christian HolstadChristian HolstadChristian Holstad is an American artist based in Brooklyn, New York City. He received his BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1994....
- Conceptual artist - Dennis HopperDennis HopperDennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
- Actor, attended Saturday classes during high school - Arthur KraftArthur KraftArthur M. Kraft was an American painter, sculptor and muralist. A native of Kansas City, Kraft was a member of the expressionist movement.-Biography:...
- Sculptor and Painter - Frank S. LandFrank S. LandFrank Sherman "Dad" Land was the Founder of the Order of DeMolay. A business and community leader in Kansas City, Land served as Imperial Potentate of the Shriners and is revered today as the Founder of the Order of DeMolay.-Biography:Land was born in Kansas, City, Missouri, and gained a...
, founder of DeMolay - Ronnie LandfieldRonnie LandfieldRonnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
- Painter - Doris LeeDoris LeeDoris Emrick Lee was born in Illinois and was an American folk artist who was known for her figurative painting and printmaking. She won the Logan Medal of the arts from the Chicago Art Institute in 1935....
- Painter - Jim MahfoodJim MahfoodJim Mahfood , a.k.a. Food One, is an American comic book creator.Apart from his creator-owned comic book series Grrl Scouts and his comic strip Stupid Comics he also did work for Marvel Comics on various Spider-Man titles, including Ultimate Marvel Team-Up and Spectacular...
- Comic book and Graffiti artist - Mercedes MatterMercedes MatterMercedes Matter née Carles was an American painter and draughtswoman. Her father was the American modernist painter Arthur Beecher Carles who had studied with Henri Matisse. Her mother, Mercedes de Cordoba, was a model for Edward Steichen...
- Painter, co-founder of the New York Studio School - Louisa MatthiasdottirLouisa MatthíasdóttirLouisa Matthíasdóttir was an Icelandic-American painter.Matthíasdóttir was born in Reykjavík. She showed artistic ability at an early age, and studied first in Denmark and then under Marcel Gromaire in Paris...
- Painter - Christina McPheeChristina McPheeChristina McPhee is an American painter, new media and video artist. She currently lives on California's central coast and San Francisco, CA.-Art:...
- New Media artist - Roger MedearisRoger MedearisRoger Medearis was an American Regionalist painter. He was a student of Thomas Hart Benton while at the Kansas City Art Institute in the late 1930s and took up the technique of egg tempera painting, a rediscovered medium popular with Regionalists...
- RegionalistRegionalism (art)Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930s. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing technological advances, to create scenes of rural life...
Painter, student of Benton - Robert MorrisRobert Morris (artist)Robert Morris is an American sculptor, conceptual artist and writer. He is regarded as one of the most prominent theorists of Minimalism along with Donald Judd but he has also made important contributions to the development of performance art, land art, the Process Art movement and installation...
- Sculptor, performance and installation artist - Jackson Lee NesbittJackson Lee NesbittJackson Lee Nesbitt was an American artist. Nesbitt was born in McAlester, Oklahoma and studied at the Kansas City Art Institute off and on from 1933 to 1941, working primarily with famed Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton and printmaker John de Martelly...
- Artist known for his regionalist etchings and lithographs, student of Benton - William F. NolanWilliam F. NolanWilliam Francis Nolan is an American author, who wrote stories in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. He is best known for coauthoring the novel Logan's Run, with George Clayton Johnson. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1976 horror film Burnt Offerings which starred Karen Black and...
- Screenwriter, original Twilight ZoneThe Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...
co-author - Victor PapanekVictor PapanekVictor Papanek was a designer and educator who became a strong advocate of the socially and ecologically responsible design of products, tools, and community infrastructures. He disapproved of manufactured products that were unsafe, showy, maladapted, or essentially useless...
- UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) designer/mediator; author, Design for the Real World; campaigned against unsafe design, advocate for design in the developing world - Margot PeetMargot PeetMarguerite Munger Peet was an American painter. She did not have a far-reaching artistic reputation during her lifetime as she did not often exhibit her work in public. Her family found over 430 of her paintings after her death, and she has been the subject of three major retrospectives in the...
- Painter, student of Benton - Sam PrekopSam PrekopSam Prekop is a rock/pop musician in the band The Sea and Cake. He also has released three solo albums. Prekop first gained recognition in the band Shrimp Boat from 1988 to 1993. Many artists have performed in the Sam Prekop band, such as Chad Taylor, Josh Abrams, Jim O'Rourke, and Archer Prewitt...
- ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
Photographer, musician with The Sea and CakeThe Sea and CakeThe Sea and Cake is an indie rock band with a pronounced jazz influence, which formed in the mid-1990s in Chicago out of the ashes of local bands The Coctails and Shrimp Boat. The group's name came from a willful reinterpretation of "The C in Cake", a song by Gastr del Sol... - Archer PrewittArcher PrewittArcher Prewitt is an American musician and cartoonist associated with the independent music scene in Chicago, Illinois.- Music :...
- ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
Illustrator, musician with The Sea and CakeThe Sea and CakeThe Sea and Cake is an indie rock band with a pronounced jazz influence, which formed in the mid-1990s in Chicago out of the ashes of local bands The Coctails and Shrimp Boat. The group's name came from a willful reinterpretation of "The C in Cake", a song by Gastr del Sol...
and the CoctailsCoctailsThe Coctails were a Chicago music quartet, which formed while its members were attending the Kansas City Art Institute. The band was active from about 1988 to 1995 The Coctails were a Chicago music quartet, which formed while its members were attending the Kansas City Art Institute. The band was... - Robert RauschenbergRobert RauschenbergRobert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
- Painter - Mikel RouseMikel RouseMikel Rouse is an American composer. He has been associated with a Downtown New York movement known as totalism, and is best known for his operas, including Dennis Cleveland, about a television talk show host, which Rouse wrote and starred in.Rouse writes music that is idiomatically and...
- Musician with Tirez TirezTirez TirezTirez Tirez was an American rock band led by composer/performer Mikel Rouse, the band's only constant member. The group was active from 1978 through 1988, and had a new wave/art rock sensibility that was strongly influenced by minimalism.-History:...
, composer who developed Totalism (music)Totalism (music)In music, totalism is a term for a style of art music that arose in the 1980s and 1990s as a developing response to minimalism—parallel to postminimalism, but generally among a slightly younger generation, born in the 1950s.... - Eric SallEric SallEric Sall is an artist from South Dakota.-Education:Sall attended the Yale Summer Program in 1998, graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1999 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree...
- Painter - Jim SupticJim SupticJim Suptic is an American musician and entrepreneur, best known for being the guitarist for Kansas City, Missouri band The Get Up Kids.-The Get Up Kids:...
- Sculptor, musician - Akio TakamoriAkio TakamoriAkio Takamori is a Japanese-American ceramic sculptor and is a faculty member at the University of Washington.-Biography:Takamori was born in Nobeoka, Miyazaki, Japan in 1950. The son of an obstetrician/gynecologist who ran a clinic, Takamori was exposed to a wide range of people from an early age...
- Ceramic artist - Christopher WillitsChristopher WillitsChristopher Willits is a musician and multimedia artist located in San Francisco. Willits is "a prominent experimental musician from the San Francisco Bay area" and "a pioneer and a teacher, exploring new methodologies for signal processing.". He has been instrumental in redefining the guitar in...
- Musician, sound and multimedia artist - Delmer J. YoakumDelmer J. YoakumDelmer J. Yoakum was an American fine artist, oil and watercolor painter, designer, serigrapher, Disneyland and Hollywood motion picture studio scenic artist.-Early life:...
- Artist, set designer/painter