Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Encyclopedia
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
in Kansas City
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...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, known for its neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
and extensive collection of Asian art
Asian art
Asian art can refer to art amongst many cultures in Asia.-Various types of Asian art:*Afghan art*Azerbaijanian art*Balinese art*Bhutanese art*Buddhist art*Burmese contemporary art*Chinese art*Eastern art*Indian art*Iranian art*Islamic art...
.
In 2007, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine ranked the museum's new Bloch Building, # 1 on its list of "The 10 Best (New and Upcoming) Architectural Marvels" which considered candidates from around the globe.
On September 1, 2010, Julián Zugazagoitia became the fifth Director of the museum.
History
The Kansas City Star
The Kansas City Star is a McClatchy newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri, in the United States. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes...
publisher William Rockhill Nelson
William Rockhill Nelson
William Rockhill Nelson was a real estate developer and founder of The Kansas City Star. He donated his estate for the establishment of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.-Early life:...
. When he died in 1915, his will provided that upon the deaths of his wife and daughter, the proceeds of his entire estate would go to purchasing artwork for public enjoyment. This bequest was augmented by additional funds from the estates of Nelson's daughter, son-in-law and attorney.
In 1911, former schoolteacher Mary Atkins (widow of real estate speculator James Burris Atkins) bequeathed $300,000 to establish an art museum. Through the management of the estate, this amount grew to $700,000 by 1927. Original plans called for two art museums based on the separate bequests (with the Atkins Museum to be located in Penn Valley Park
Penn Valley Park
Penn Valley Park is an urban park overlooking Downtown Kansas City Kansas City, Missouri.The park was developed in 1904 on land through which the Santa Fe Trail had passed. It contains two famous landmarks: The Scout and the United States' official World War I museum with its Liberty Memorial...
). However, trustees of the two estates decided to combine the two bequests along with smaller bequests from others to make a single major art institution.
The building was designed by prominent Kansas City architects 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....
, who also designed the approaches to the Liberty Memorial
Liberty Memorial
The Liberty Memorial, located in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, is a memorial to the fallen soldiers of World War I and houses the The National World War I Museum, as designated by the United States Congress in 2004.. Groundbreaking commenced November 1, 1921, and the city held a site dedication...
and the Kansas governor's mansion, Cedar Crest. Ground was broken in July 1930, and the museum opened December 11, 1933. The building's classical Beaux-Arts architecture style was modeled on the Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000...
Thomas Wight, the brother who did most of the design work for the building said:
We are building the museum on classic principles because they have been proved by the centuries. A distinctly American principle appropriate for such a building may be developed, but, so far, everything of that kind is experimental. One doesn’t experiment with two-and-a-half million dollars.
When the original building opened its final cost was $2.75 million. The dimensions of the six-story structure were 390 feet (118.9 m) long by 175 feet (53.3 m) wide making it larger than the Cleveland Museum of Art.
The museum, which was locally referred to as the Nelson Art Gallery or simply the Nelson Gallery, was actually two museums until 1983 when it was formally named the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Previously the east wing was called the Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, while the west wing and lobby was called the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art.
On the exterior of the building Charles Keck
Charles Keck
Charles Keck was an American sculptor, born in New York City. He studied in the National Academy of Design and Art Students League with Philip Martiny and was an assistant to Augustus Saint-Gaudens from 1893 to 1898. He also attended the American Academy in Rome. He is best known for his...
created 23 limestone panels depicting the march of civilization from east to west including wagon trains heading west from Westport Landing. Grillwork in the doors depict oak leaf motifs in memory of Oak Hall. The south facade of the museum is an iconic structure in Kansas City that looms over a series of terraces onto Brush Creek.
About the same time as the construction of the museum, Howard Vanderslice donated 8 acres (32,374.9 m²) to the west of the museum, across Oak Street, for the Kansas City Art Institute
Kansas City Art Institute
The Kansas City Art Institute is a private, independent, four-year college of fine arts and design founded in 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri....
, which moved from the Deardorf Building at 11th and Main streets in downtown Kansas City.
As William Nelson, the major contributor, donated money rather than a personal art collection, the curators were able to assemble a collection from scratch. At the height of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, the worldwide art market was flooded with pieces for sale, but there were very few buyers. As such, the museum's buyers found a vast market open to them. The acquisitions grew quickly and within a short time, the Nelson-Atkins had one of the largest art collections in the country.
One-third of the building on the first and second floors of the west wing were left unfinished when the building opened to allow for future expansion. Part was completed in 1941 to house Chinese painting and the remainder of the building was completed after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Annually, from 1954 through 2000, the Jewel Ball
Jewel Ball
The Jewel Ball is the main annual debutante ball held in Kansas City, Missouri, in the United States. It is organized by the Jewel Ball Foundation, which appoints a prominent Kansas City socialite to be the chairwoman. In 2007, it was held on June 9....
, Kansas City's debutante
Debutante
A débutante is a young lady from an aristocratic or upper class family who has reached the age of maturity, and as a new adult, is introduced to society at a formal "début" presentation. It should not be confused with a Debs...
ball, took place every June in the main hall to benefit both the museum and the Kansas City Symphony
Kansas City Symphony
The Kansas City Symphony is a United States symphony orchestra based in Kansas City, Missouri. The current music director is conductor Michael Stern. The current home of the Symphony is the Lyric Theatre, located in Downtown Kansas City on 11th Street between Wyandotte and Central Streets...
. The ball was moved temporarily to accommodate the expansion project at the museum and returned in 2008.
One of the original components of the building was a recreation of Nelson's oak paneled room from Oak Hall (and namesake of the estate). The room contained Nelson's red plush easy chair and bookcases. The room was dismantled in 1988 to make way for a photography studio. Museum officials said it would be restored when space was available. However the room was not restored after the Bloch addition.
Bloch Building Addition
Architect Steven Holl
Steven Holl
Steven Holl is an American architect and watercolorist, perhaps best known for the 1998 Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland, the 2003 Simmons Hall at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the celebrated 2007 Bloch Building addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City,...
won an international competition in 1999 for the design of the addition. Holl's concept was to build five glass towers to the east of the original building which he calls lenses. The lenses they top a 165000 square feet (15,329 m²) underground building known as the Bloch Building. It is named for H&R Block
H&R Block
H&R Block is a tax preparation company in the United States, claiming more than 22 million customers worldwide, with offices in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. The Kansas City-based company also offers banking, personal finance and business consulting services.Founded in 1955 by brothers...
co-founder Henry W. Bloch
Henry W. Bloch
Henry Wollman Bloch is the co-founder and the chairman emeritus of H&R Block.Henry and his brother, Richard Bloch, founded H&R Block in 1955 in Kansas City, Missouri.-Personal life:Bloch was born in Kansas City...
. The Bloch building houses the museum's contemporary, African, photography, and special exhibitions galleries as well a new cafe, the museum's reference library, and the Isamu Noguchi
Isamu Noguchi
was a prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces,...
Sculpture Court. The addition cost approximately $95 million and opened June 9, 2007. It was part of $200 million in renovations to the museum that included the Ford Learning Center which is home to classes, workshops, and resources for students and educators and opened in fall of 2005.
In the competition to design the addition, all the entrants except Holl proposed creating a modern addition on the north side of the museum which would have drastically altered or obscured the north facade which served as the main entrance to the museum. However Holl proposed placing the addition on the east side perpendicular to the main building. Holl's lenses now march down the east perimeter of the grounds.
While still on the drawing boards, Holl's plan met with considerable controversy. It was described as "grotesque, a metal box." However reviews of the new structure have generally been raves:
New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff
Nicolai Ouroussoff
Nicolai Ouroussoff is the architecture critic for The New York Times.-Biography:Born in Boston, Massachusetts United States, he received a bachelor’s degree in Russian from Georgetown University and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of ArchitectureThe protégé of the...
gives this description:
The result is a building that doesn’t challenge the past so much as suggest an alternate world view that is in constant shift. Seen from the north plaza, the addition’s main entrance gently defers to the old building, the crystalline form suggesting a ghostlike echo of the austere stone facade. From there, the eye is drawn to the distinct yet interconnected translucent blocks, which are partly buried in the landscape.
The museum has gone against traditional conservatorial thinking in allowing natural light from the lenses to illuminate its art work. Most of the exhibits in the addition are below ground with the 27 to 34 feet (10.4 m) glass towers above them. Officials say that advances in glass technology have allowed them to block most of the harmful ultraviolet rays that could damage the exhibited works.
The custom glass planks were manufactured by Glasfabrik Lamberts and imported by Bendheim Wall Systems.
Admission to the Museum is free every day and visitors may use any of seven entrances to access building. The main visitor's desk is in the Bloch Building. On the north side of the museum, A reflecting pool now occupies part of the J.C. Nichols Plaza on the north facade and contains 34 occuli to provide natural light into the parking garage below. The casting of The Thinker
The Thinker
The Thinker is a bronze and marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin, whose first cast, of 1902, is now in the Musée Rodin in Paris; there are some twenty other original castings as well as various other versions, studies, and posthumous castings. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a...
which occupied this space prior to the renovations has been relocated south of the museum.
European painting
The museum's European paintingWestern art history
Western art is the art of the North American and European countries, and art created in the forms accepted by those countries.Written histories of Western art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Aegean civilisations, dating from the 3rd millennium BC...
collection is also highly-prized. It includes works by Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...
, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin was an 18th-century French painter. He is considered a master of still life, and is also noted for his genre paintings which depict kitchen maids, children, and domestic activities...
, Petrus Christus
Petrus Christus
Petrus Christus was an Early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges from 1444.-Life:Christus was born in Baarle, near Antwerp and Breda. Long considered a student of and successor to Jan van Eyck, his paintings have sometimes been confused with those of Van Eyck. At the death of Van Eyck in 1441,...
, El Greco
El Greco
El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
, Guercino, Alessandro Magnasco
Alessandro Magnasco
Alessandro Magnasco , also known as il Lissandrino, was an Italian late-Baroque painter active mostly in Milan and Genoa...
, Giuseppe Bazzani
Giuseppe Bazzani
Giuseppe Bazzani was an Italian painter of the Rococo.Born in Mantua to a goldsmith, Giovanni Bazzani, early on he apprenticed with the Parmesan painter Giovanni Canti . A fellow pupil was Francesco Maria Raineri. He spent most of his life in Mantua...
, Corrado Giaquinto
Corrado Giaquinto
Corrado Giaquinto was an Italian Rococo painter.-Early training and move to Rome:He was born in Molfetta. As a boy he apprenticed with a modest local painter Saverio Porta, , escaping the religious career his parents had intended for him...
, Cavaliere d'Arpino, Gaspare Traversi
Gaspare Traversi
Gaspare Traversi was a Rococo painter best known for his genre works, and active both in his native city of Naples, but also painted throughout Italy, including a stay in Parma. He was active mainly between 1732–1769. He trained under Francesco Solimena...
, Giuliano Bugiardini
Giuliano Bugiardini
Giuliano Bugiardini was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance period known as Mannerism, active mainly in Florence....
, Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
, Rembrandt, and Peter Paul Rubens, as well as Impressionists
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
Gustave Caillebotte
Gustave Caillebotte
Gustave Caillebotte was a French painter, member and patron of the group of artists known as Impressionists, though he painted in a much more realistic manner than many other artists in the group...
, Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
, Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
, Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
and Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
, among others.
It also has fine Late Gothic and Early Italian Renaissance paintings by; Jacopo del Casentino
Jacopo del Casentino
Jacopo del Casentino was an Italian painter called Jacopo Landino or da Prato Vecchio, active mainly in Tuscany...
(The Presentation of Christ in the Temple), Giovanni di Paolo
Giovanni di Paolo
Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia was an Italian painter, working primarily in Siena. He may have apprenticed with Taddeo di Bartolo, becoming a prolific painter and illustrator of manuscripts, including Dante's texts....
and Workshop, Bernardo Daddi
Bernardo Daddi
Bernardo Daddi was an early Italian renaissance painter and apprentice of Giotto. He was also influenced by the Sienese art of Lorenzetti....
and Workshop, Lorenzo Monaco
Lorenzo Monaco
Lorenzo Monaco was an Italian painter of the late Gothic-early Renaissance age.-Biography:...
, Gherardo Starnina
Gherardo Starnina
Gherardo Starnina was an Italian painter from Florence.According to the biographer Giorgio Vasari, Starnina initially trained with Antonio Veneziano, then with Agnolo Gaddi. He is claimed to have participated in the painting of the frescos in the Castellani Chapel in Santa Croce, Florence...
(The Adoration of the Magi), and Lorenzo di Credi
Lorenzo di Credi
Lorenzo di Credi was an Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor. He first influenced Leonardo da Vinci and then was greatly influenced by him.-Life:...
. It has German and Austrian Expressionist paintings by Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
, Karl Hofer
Karl Höfer
Karl Höfer was a German officer. During World War I he became known as the Held vom Kemmelberge for his actions at the Kemmelberg....
(Record Player), Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors...
, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a...
and Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.-Biography:...
(Pyramids of Egypt).
Asia
The museum is distinguished (and widely celebrated) for its extensive collection of AsiaAsia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n art, especially that of Imperial China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. Most of it was purchased for the museum in the early 20th century by Laurence Sickman
Laurence Sickman
Laurence Chalfant Stevens Sickman was an American academic, art historian, sinologist and Director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.-Education:...
, then a Harvard
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
fellow in China. The museum has one of the best collections of Chinese antique furniture in the country. In addition to Chinese art, the collection includes pieces from Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
, and Southeast
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
, and South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
.
American painting
The American paintingVisual arts of the United States
American art encompasses the history of painting and visual art in the United States. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. A parallel development taking shape in rural America was the American craft movement,...
collection includes the largest collection open to the public of works by 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...
, who lived in Kansas City. Among its collection are masterpieces by George Bellows
George Bellows
George Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".-Youth:Bellows was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio...
, George Caleb Bingham
George Caleb Bingham
George Caleb Bingham was an American artist whose paintings of American life in the frontier lands along the Missouri River exemplify the Luminist style. Left to languish in obscurity, Bingham's work was rediscovered in the 1930s...
, Frederic Church, John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley was an American painter, born presumably in Boston, Massachusetts, and a son of Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Irish. He is famous for his portrait paintings of important figures in colonial New England, depicting in particular middle-class subjects...
, Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
, Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....
, and John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
.
It also has fine Contemporary Paintings and Creations in the Bloch Building by; Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
, Fairfield Porter
Fairfield Porter
Fairfield Porter was an American painter and art critic. He was the brother of photographer Eliot Porter and the brother-in-law of federal Reclamation Commissioner Michael W. Straus....
("Mirror"), Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud is an American painter whose most famous works are of cakes, pastries, boots, toilets, toys and lipsticks. He is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate...
("Bikini Girl"), Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn was a well-known 20th century American painter. His early work is associated with Abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His later work were instrumental to his achievement of worldwide acclaim.-Biography:Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr...
, Agnes Martin
Agnes Martin
Agnes Bernice Martin was an American abstract painter, often referred to as a minimalist; Martin considered herself an abstract expressionist.She won a National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1998....
, Bridget Riley
Bridget Riley
Bridget Louise Riley CH CBE is an English painter who is one of the foremost proponents of Op art.-Early life:...
, and Alfred Jensen
Alfred Jensen
Peter Alfred Jensen was a Danish politician and government minister. He was a member of the Danish Communist Party ....
.
Photography
In 2006, Hallmark CardsHallmark Cards
Hallmark Cards is a privately owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri. Founded in 1910 by Joyce C. Hall, Hallmark is the largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the United States. In 1985, the company was awarded the National Medal of Arts....
chairman Donald J. Hall, Sr.
Donald J. Hall, Sr.
Donald J. Hall Sr. is the chairman of the board and majority shareholder of Hallmark Cards, the world's largest greeting card manufacturer and one of the world's largest privately held companies. Hallmark's headquarters is in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.. He and his wife, Adele, live in Mission...
, donated to the museum the entire Hallmark Photographic Collection, spanning the history of photography from 1839 to the present day. It is primarily American in focus, and includes works from photographers such as Southworth & Hawes
Southworth & Hawes
Southworth & Hawes was an early photographic firm in Boston, 1843-1863. Its partners, Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes , have been hailed as the first great American masters of photography, whose work elevated photographic portraits to the level of fine art...
, Carleton Watkins
Carleton Watkins
Carleton E. Watkins was a noted 19th century California photographer.Carleton Emmons Watkins was born in Oneonta, upstate New York. He went to San Francisco during the gold rush, arriving in 1851...
, Timothy O'Sullivan
Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Timothy H. O'Sullivan was a photographer widely known for his work related to the American Civil War and the Western United States.O'Sullivan was born in New York City. As a teenager, he was employed by Mathew Brady...
, Alvin Langdon Coburn
Alvin Langdon Coburn
Alvin Langdon Coburn was an early 20th century photographer who became a key figure in the development of American pictorialism...
, Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...
, Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration...
, Homer Page
Homer Page
Homer Page was an American documentary photographer whose most famous photographs were taken in New York City in 1949-1950, after he received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation....
, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander
Lee Friedlander
Lee Friedlander is an American photographer and artist. In the 1960s and 70s, working primarily with 35mm cameras and black and white film, Friedlander evolved an influential and often imitated visual language of urban "social landscape," with many of the photographs including fragments of...
, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, Todd Webb
Todd Webb
Todd Webb was an American photographer notable for documenting everyday life and architecture in cities such as New York, Paris as well as from the American west. His photography has been compared with Harry Callahan, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, and the French photographer Eugène Atget...
, and Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
, among others.
Kansas City Sculpture Park
Outside on the museum's immense lawn, the Kansas City Sculpture Park contains the largest collection of monumental bronzes by Henry MooreHenry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
in the United States. The park also includes works by Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
, Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
, George Segal
George Segal (artist)
George Segal was an American painter and sculptor associated with the Pop Art movement. He was presented with a National Medal of Arts in 1999.-Works:...
and Mark di Suvero
Mark di Suvero
Marco Polo "Mark" di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to study...
, among others. Beyond these, the park (and the museum itself) is well known for Shuttlecocks, a four-part outdoor sculpture of oversize badminton
Badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...
shuttlecock
Shuttlecock
A shuttlecock, sometimes called a bird or birdie, is a high-drag projectile used in the sport of badminton. It has an open conical shape: the cone is formed from sixteen or so overlapping feathers, usually goose or duck and from the left wing only, embedded into a rounded cork base...
s by Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
and Coosje van Bruggen
Coosje van Bruggen
Coosje van Bruggen was a sculptor, art historian, and critic. She collaborated extensively with her husband, Claes Oldenburg.-Biography:...
.
Other
In addition, the museum also has collections of EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an and American sculpture, decorative arts and works on paper, Egyptian art
Art of Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from 5000 BC to 300 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic...
, Greek
Greek art
Greek art began in the Cycladic and Minoan prehistorical civilization, and gave birth to Western classical art in the ancient period...
and Roman art
Roman art
Roman art has the visual arts made in Ancient Rome, and in the territories of the Roman Empire. Major forms of Roman art are architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work...
, modern and contemporary paintings and sculpture, pre-Columbian art, and the art of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, Oceania
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
and the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
. As well, the museum houses a major collection of English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
pottery and another of miniature paintings.