Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

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The Nelson with the new Bloch addition
The Nelson with the new Bloch addition

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

In 2007, TIME Magazine ranked the museum's new Bloch Building, # 1 on the "The 10 Best (New and Upcoming) Architectural Marvels" list. [1] Candidates of the list are from various parts of the globe.

Contents

[edit] History

View from the south side
View from the south side
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The museum was built on the grounds of Oak Hall, the home of Kansas City Star publisher William Rockhill Nelson[2]. 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. Around the same time, former schoolteacher Mary Atkins (widow of real estate speculator James Burris Atkins) bequeathed $300,000 to establish an art museum. The amount grew to $700,000 by 1927. Original plans called for two art museums based on the separate bequests[3] (with the Atkins Museum to be located in Penn Valley Park). However, it was 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 (who also designed the approaches to the Liberty Memorial and the Kansas governor's mansion, Cedar Crest). Ground was broken in 1930, and the museum opened on December 11, 1933. The building's classical Beaux-Arts architecture style was modeled on the Cleveland Museum of Art[4] 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.[5]

When the building opened it had cost $2.75 million.

The original dimensions of the six-story building were 390 feet long by 175 feet wide (larger than the original 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.[6]

On the exterior of the building Charles Keck 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. A recreation of the Oak Hall library containing the original wood paneling, floors, rugs, furniture, pictures and books, is on an upper floor.[7]

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 eight acres to the west of the museum, across Oak Street, for the Kansas City Art Institute, which moved from the Deardorf Building at 11th and Main streets in downtown Kansas City.

Nelson, the major contributor, donated money rather than a personal art collection and so the curators were able to create the collection from scratch. At the height of the Great Depression, 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. Within very little time, the Nelson-Atkins had one of the largest art collections in the country.

A third of the west wing was left unfinished when the building opened. Part of it was completed in 1941. The rest of the building was completed after World War II.

From 1954 through 2000, the Jewel Ball, Kansas City's debutante ball, took place every June in the main hall. The ball has always benefited both the museum and the Kansas City Symphony. The ball was moved temporarily to accommodate an expansion project at the museum and is slated to return in 2008.

[edit] Bloch Building addition

Bloch Addition at night from the south on Brush Creek. The lighted KCPT Tower is in the background.
Bloch Addition at night from the south on Brush Creek. The lighted KCPT Tower is in the background.

In 1993, the museum began to consider expansion plans. Plans called for a 55 percent increase in space — to be the first addition to the building — and were finalized in 1999.

Architect Steven Holl won an international competition in 1999 for the design of the addition. Holl's concept was to build five glass towers on the east side of the building. Holl calls them lenses, and they top a 165,000 square-foot building, all of it except for the lenses underground, called the Bloch building. It is named for H&R Block co-founder Henry W. Bloch. 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 Sculpture Court. The addition (which cost about $95 million), opened June 9, 2007, and is part of $200 million in renovations to the museum including the Ford Learning Center, home to classes, workshops, and resources for students and educators, which 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 had been 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."[8] However reviews of the new structure have generally been raves:

New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff 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.[9]
The Thinker marked the north entrance prior to the addition. It is now on the south side as depicted here.
The Thinker marked the north entrance prior to the addition. It is now on the south side as depicted here.

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 foot 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.[9]

Admission to the Museum is free everyday. There are seven entrances to the building and visitors can use any of them. The main vistor's desk is now in the Bloch Building. On the north side of the museum, a reflecting pool now is in the front of the north facade and a cast of The Thinker which had been there has been moved to the south side of the museum.

[edit] Collections

[edit] European painting

John the Baptist (John in the Wilderness), by Caravaggio, one of the works in the Nelson-Atkins's European painting collection
John the Baptist (John in the Wilderness), by Caravaggio, one of the works in the Nelson-Atkins's European painting collection

The museum's European painting collection is also highly-prized. It include works by Caravaggio, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Petrus Christus, El Greco, Guercino, Alessandro Magnasco, Giuseppe Bazzani, Corrado Giaquinto, Cavalierie d'Arpino, Gaspare Traversi, Giuliano Bugiardini, Titian, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, as well as Impressionists Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Vincent van Gogh, among others.

[edit] Asia

The museum is distinguished (and widely celebrated) for its extensive collection of Asian art, especially that of Imperial China. Most of it was purchased for the museum in the early 20th century by Laurence Sickman, then a Harvard fellow in China. In addition to Chinese art, the collection includes pieces from Japan, India, Iran, Indonesia, Korea, and Southeast, and South Asia.

[edit] American painting

The American painting collection includes the largest collection open to the public of works by Thomas Hart Benton, who lived in Kansas City. Among its collection are masterpieces by George Bellows, George Caleb Bingham, Frederic Church, John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent.

[edit] Photography

In 2006, Hallmark Cards chairman Donald J. Hall, Sr., donated 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, Carleton Watkins, Timothy O'Sullivan, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, Andy Warhol, and Cindy Sherman, among others.

One of the outdoor steel sculpture of badminton shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.
One of the outdoor steel sculpture of badminton shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

[edit] 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 Moore in the United States. The park also includes works by Alexander Calder, Auguste Rodin, George Segal and Mark di Suvero, among others. Beyond these, the park (and the museum itself) is well known for Shuttlecocks, a four-part outdoor steel sculpture of oversize badminton shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

[edit] Other

In addition, the museum also has collections of European and American sculpture, decorative arts and works on paper, Egyptian art, Greek and Roman art, modern and contemporary paintings and sculpture, pre-Columbian art, and the art of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. As well, the museum houses a major collection of English pottery and another of miniature paintings.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ The 10 Best (New and Upcoming) Architectural Marvels - TIME
  2. ^ The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Architecture & History: Founders
  3. ^ The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Architecture & History: Founders, Mary McAfee Atkins
  4. ^ Local History - Kansas City Public Library
  5. ^ The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Architecture & History: Building
  6. ^ The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Architecture & History: Building
  7. ^ Local History - Kansas City Public Library
  8. ^ Museum previews new addition By MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER - Associated Press - June 4, 2007
  9. ^ a b A Translucent and Radiant Partner With the Past - New York Times - June 6, 2007

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
v • d • e
Museums with major collections of Asian Art
  1. Forbidden City *, Beijing, China
    1,000,000 objects [1]
  2. National Palace Museum *, Taipei, Taiwan
    700,000 objects [1]
  3. National Museum of China *¹, Beijing, China
    620,000 objects [2]
  4. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
    160,000 objects [3]
  5. National Museum of Korea, Seoul, South Korea
    150,000 objects [4]
  6. Shanghai Museum *, China
    120,000 objects [5]
  7. National Museum ², Japan
    120,000 objects [6]
  1. British Library ³, London, UK
    90,000 objects [7] [8]
  2. British Museum, London, UK
    75,000 objects [9] [10]
  3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
    60,000 objects [11]]
  4. Musée du quai Branly, Paris, France
    58,000 objects [12]
  5. Musee Guimet, Paris, France
    ~50,000 objects [13]
  6. Museum of Fine Arts **, Boston, USA
    ~40,000 objects [14]
  7. Horniman Museum, London, UK
    32,000 objects [15]
  1. Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin, Germany
    20,000 objects [16]
  2. Art Institute of Chicago ***, USA
    35,000 objects [17]
  3. Freer Gallery of Art / Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., USA
    18,200 objects [18]
  4. Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, USA
    17,000 objects [19]
  5. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
    10,450 objects [20]

Please Note - * : These three museum's specialise in only Chinese items, the collections are not comprehensive for all Asia - *¹ National Museum of China: Includes contemporary collections, science & technology and decorative arts, however the vast majority derives from the Imperial collection, divided between Beijing and the National Palace Museum, Taipei - ² National Museum: This includes the combined holdings of the three museums that make up the National Museum, i.e. Tokyo National Museum, Kyoto National Museum, Nara National Museum - ³ British Library: No sculptures or architecural elements, the world's largest collection of ancient manuscripts from Asia, including the Stein Collection - Misleading Collection: ² Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Asian collection includes books, prints, postcards and modern paraphernalia, website indicates a massive collection, which is misleading - Misleading Collection: ³ Art Institute of Chicago: The Near & Middle East objects are included within the scope of the collection, overinflates size.

n.b. it should be noted that this list is controversial, in so far as it contains only qualitative analysis of museum holdings. These may or may not reflect actual artistic quality of collections in question.
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