Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its neo-classical architecture and extensive collection of Asian art.

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

History

thumb|250px|Shuttlecock. The museum was built on the grounds of Oak Hall, the home of Kansas City Star publisher William Rockhill NelsonThe Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Architecture & History: Founders. 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 bequestsThe Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Architecture & History: Founders, Mary McAfee Atkins (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 ArtLocal History - Kansas City Public Library 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.The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Architecture & History: Building

When the building opened it had cost $2.75 million.

The original dimensions of the six-story building were long by 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.The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Architecture & History: Building

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.Local History - Kansas City Public Library

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 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.

Bloch Building Addition

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 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."Museum previews new addition By MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER - Associated Press - June 4, 2007 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.A Translucent and Radiant Partner With the Past - New York Times - June 6, 2007

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 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.

Admission to the Museum is free everyday. There are seven entrances to the building and visitors can use any of them. The main visitor'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.

Gallery: Bloch Building Addition

Collections

European painting

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.

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. 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, India, Iran, Indonesia, Korea, and Southeast, and South Asia.

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.

Photography

In 2006, Hallmark Cards chairman Donald J. Hall, Sr., 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, Carleton Watkins, Timothy O'Sullivan, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange, Homer Page, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, Andy Warhol, and Cindy Sherman, 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 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 sculpture of oversize badminton shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

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.

See also

• Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

References

External links

• Official website

es:Museo Nelson-Atkins

fr:Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art zh:纳尔逊艺术博物馆

Categories: Buildings | Buildings in USA | Buildings in Missouri, USA | Buildings in Kansas City, Missouri, USA