Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Art museum with a 1933 neoclassical block, Steven Holl's Bloch Building and a sculpture park.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art opened in December 1933, funded by bequests from the newspaper publisher William Rockhill Nelson and the lawyer Mary Atkins. Wight and Wight designed the original limestone building in a restrained neoclassical manner, set on high ground south of the city centre. The collection runs from ancient Egypt and the Near East to the present, and includes particularly strong holdings of Chinese art, European painting, American art and photography.
In 2007 the museum added the Bloch Building by Steven Holl, a sequence of five translucent glass volumes stepping down the eastern lawn and lit from within at night. Around the buildings, the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park holds works by Henry Moore and others, including the four pairs of giant shuttlecocks placed on the lawns by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen in 1994. Admission to the museum is free.
Highlights
- Bloch Building of 2007, five glowing glass 'lenses' by Steven Holl
- Shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen on the lawns
- One of the largest collections of Chinese art in the United States
- Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park, with works by Henry Moore
