Nelson Atkins Museum - Kansas City, Missouri

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Nelson Atkins Museum - Kansas City, Missouri
Containing more than 33,500 works of art, a sculpture garden with 30 displays to see.

At the heart of the Nelson-Atkins’ transformation is the new Bloch Building, a significant work of contemporary architecture by Steven Holl Architects that is woven harmoniously into the surrounding landscape of the Kansas City Sculpture Park. The new Bloch Building offers a parking garage and entrance plaza, the completion and opening of the Ford Learning Center and numerous renovations and restorations of the original Nelson-Atkins Building, including the new Adelaide Cobb Ward Sculpture Hall.

African Art Collection
The African collection comprises approximately 300 objects that are diverse in form and in media. Masks, sculptures, hair combs, headrests, textiles and vessels are among the many types of works represented; media include fiber, metal, wood, beads and clay.

While the African collection exemplifies formal beauty, it also represents the historical range of objects created by cultures south of the Sahara Desert. Most of the artworks were created by artists living in West and Central Africa, primarily the countries of Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

American Art Collection
American art at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art includes painting, sculpture and works on paper made in the United States from the 18th century through World War II.

Comprised of approximately 600 works of art, the collection’s strength rests primarily on its nearly 300 paintings and significant holdings of watercolors and drawings and constitutes one of the nation’s finest public collections of American art.

American Indian Art Collection
The American Indian collection encompasses important works from all North American culture areas, dating from pre-contact to the present, and includes pottery, basketry, quill and beadwork, textiles, painting and sculpture. Numbering about 1500 objects today, the core collection was established at the time of the Museum’s opening in 1933 with major purchases from the Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation (now the National Museum of the American Indian) and the Fred Harvey Company, reflecting the Nelson-Atkins’ endeavor to present Native artistic traditions as an important part of our national heritage.

The collection’s greatest depth is in a group of classic Navajo and Pueblo textiles, nearly encyclopedic in range of exceptional quality, and a superb selection of Rio Grande Pueblo pots, including what is perhaps the finest known early 19th century Santa Ana/Zia jar. The Southwestern collection also includes stellar works from mid-20th century jewelry masters Leekya and Lambert Homer.

Ancient Art Collection
Spanning over 4,000 years, from the 4th millennium B.C.E. to the 5th century C.E., the ancient art collection at the Nelson-Atkins is of the highest quality, brilliantly representing the great civilization of the Near East, Egypt, Greece and Rome.

The Egyptian galleries boast stone portraits of famous kings and queens from Sesostris III to Ramses II, from Nefertiti to the Ptolemies. Sculptures from the tombs of their wealthy courtiers and governors line the Museum’s walls. The collection is particularly rich in art from the third millennium B.C.E., but other periods are well represented.

Chinese Art Collection
As early as 1930, the focus was to build a collection that would represent China’s highest achievements in every medium and from every historical period. As a result, the Chinese collection is one of the finest in the world.

With more than 7,500 works of high quality, the Chinese collection comprises masterpieces from every historical stage and in every medium of China’s artistic activity – from Neolithic times to the 20th century.

Decorative Arts Collection
From the 18th Century on the museums collection will give you a greater feeling of what life in the past was like. The decorative arts collections are integrated into the Museum’s galleries with paintings, sculpture and works on paper, allowing visitors to make connections between objects that evoke a greater understanding of the social, economic, political, religious and artistic contexts of the past.

European Art Collection
The collection of European painting and sculpture at the Nelson-Atkins ranges from medieval to late 19th century and contains approximately 900 works of art.

Among the strongest areas are the Italian and the German and Netherlandish paintings, for which scholarly catalogs are available.

Japanese Art Collection
The Japanese collection contains more than 2,000 works of art ranging from the 10th century B.C.E. to the early 20th century.

The strength of the collection lies in the number and quality of its folding paper screens, an art form that is a unique contribution of Japan. Paramount among the screens is the sublime pair Pine and Plum by Moonlight by Kaihō Yūshō of the Momoyama period.

Kansas City Sculpture Park
The Kansas City Sculpture Park is a 22-acre oasis of park land in the middle of an urban setting. Designed by internationally recognized architects Dan Kiley and Jaquelin Robertson, the Sculpture Park opened in 1989. It contains over 30 sculptures primarily from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Modern & Contemporary Art Collection
The modern and contemporary art collection surveys European art from 1900 to the present and American Art from 1945 to the present. It is comprised of paintings, sculptures and drawings, many of which are displayed along with works of decorative art, within approximately 23,000 square feet of gallery space in the Nelson-Atkins and Bloch Buildings.

Photography Collection
The Photography collection encompasses the medium’s entire history, from 1839 to the present. It grew from a holding of 1,015 primarily American works to a collection of more than 7,000 with the acquisition in 2006 of the famed Hallmark Photographic Collection, one of the finest private collections of American photography ever assembled.

Print Collection
The Print collection, with more than 6,000 examples, is one of the largest collections in the Museum. Old Master prints constitute about three-quarters of the collection, which ranges from the 15th century – shortly after the dawn of printing in the Western world – to the 21st century.

South & Southeast Asian Art Collection
The collection holds 945 objects of the highest quality from the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religions. Objects range from the 3rd century B.C.E. to the 19th century C.E., from areas covered by modern-day India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. The Museum’s collection of Indian bronzes contains nearly every major style from the 2nd to the 15th centuries.

Location: 4525 Oak Street, Kansas City, Missouri

Hours:Tues, Wed, Sun, 10 a.m.—5 p.m.
Thurs, Fri, Sat, 10 a.m.—9 p.m. (The Bloch Building lobby is open 30 minutes before and after posted hours.)

Closed Mondays, New Year’s Day, July 4, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Admission to the Museum is FREE for all visitors.
There may be a charge for special exhibitions.

Directions & Parking
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is located in the center of Kansas City, at 4525 Oak Street, three blocks northeast of the Country Club Plaza.

Parking
Entrance to the parking garage is on the west side of the Nelson-Atkins Building on Oak Street. Parking is $5. Museum members park free.

Accessibility
Public areas in the Nelson-Atkins are accessible to visitors in wheelchairs.

Parking and an accessible entrance for people with disabilities are available at the Museum’s Oak Street entrance on the building’s west side. Several wheelchairs are available at the Oak Street entrance and at the Museum’s entrance on the north side. These are free and available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Elevators are located on all floors of the Museum. Accessible restrooms are located on the lobby level and plaza level.

Photography

Visitors are welcome to take personal photographs inside the Nelson-Atkins Building, including photos of most art (note the exception below), but only without a tripod or flash. Flash photography is allowed in only two areas of the Museum: Kirkwood Hall and Rozzelle Court Restaurant. Hand-held video cameras (without lights) are acceptable.

Phone: 816.751.1ART ( 816.751.1278)