Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

In the Public Eye: Photography and Fame

March 8 — June 15
Bloch Building, Gallery L11

Clarence Sinclair Bull, American, 1895-1979.
Hedy Lamarr, 1938. Gelatin silver print.
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc., 2005.27.3902.

This exhibition will feature some of the most recognizable works in photographic history, by some of the most celebrated photographers. Thematically, the exhibition explores the relationship between photography and celebrity and the collaborative nature of this process: the willing role of celebrities in creating their public image. A broad range of works from the 1860s to the present will be on view, by photographers such as Mathew Brady, Edward Steichen, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Imogen Cunningham, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Arnold Newman, Andy Warhol and Annie Leibovitz.

Free admission, no exhibition tickets required.

Sparks! The William T. Kemper Collecting Initiative

May 3 – July 20
Bloch Building, Gallery L13, L14

Pat Steir, American, (b. 1938).
Double Waterfall for a Simple Afternoon, 1990.
Oil on canvas. Purchase: acquired through the generosity of
the William T. Kemper Foundation--Commerce Bank, Trustee.

This exhibition will include the 32 modern and contemporary works acquired through the generosity of the initiative since it began in 1999. Underwritten by the William T. Kemper Foundation—Commerce Bank, Trustee the initiative has allocated $1 million each year for the acquisition of contemporary art. Guided by art advisor Robert Storr, Dean of Yale's School of Art and Nelson-Atkins Sanders Sosland Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Jan Schall, the foundation has made several key purchases for the Museum.

This featured exhibition will be ticketed.

Human/Nature: Recent European Landscape Photography

June 28 – October 5
Bloch Building, Gallery L11

Bart Michiels, Verdun 1916, Le Mort Homme, 2001.
Chromogenic print. Image: 60 x 72 inches.
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation, 2007.21.20.

This exhibition features a selection of large-scale color photographs by a new generation of European artists, including Andreas Gefeller, Peter Bialobrzeski, Massimo Vitali, Olaf Otto Becker, Bart Michiels, Jem Southam, and Wout Berger, among others. These artists engage with the contemporary European landscape in varying ways.

For some, the land retains romantic associations, as a source of sublime inspiration. For others, cultural interventions such as the leisure industry and real estate development are paramount concerns. Notions of home, the physical and emotional weight of history, and the power of memory to shape perception of the land also inform these images. Together, these works explore the endlessly complex relationship between nature and the human presence, from harmonious coexistence to contentious exploitation. This exhibition provides the first opportunity to view bold, contemporary works never before seen in this region.

Free admission, no exhibition tickets required.

Revealing, Reversible and Resplendent:
15th-17th-Century Italian and Spanish Textiles

February 19 — August 17
Nelson-Atkins Building, Gallery P6

Orphrey, fragment, 16th century.
Italian/Spanish. Silk and linen, TT1988-42.

A single thread can make a stitch. Multiple threads can be woven together to create cloth, but imagine threads fashioned into elaborate embroidery, gilded three-dimensional images, brilliantly-hued reversible fabrics, and even textiles purposely cut in a pattern that revealed glimpses of one's undergarments below—a style fashionable during the 17th century. This exhibition showcases silk and linen fragments spanning the 15th-17th centuries, a period of expanded exploration and trade, when Italy and Spain emerged as major centers of textile production. During this era, textiles with three-dimensional effects became popular within the Christian church and the secular world.

To create relief images, professionally trained embroiderers attached applied work, or appliqués, onto garments, such as this orphrey, a decorative panel for church vestments. The orphrey's motifs were formed by first stitching small pieces of fabric, such as the birds' white bodies, onto a base cloth. Padding may have been stuffed in between the layers of fabric to achieve added dimension, and then the various shapes were outlined and detailed with embroidery and cording. The appliqués, including dragon heads and birds flanking a chalice, are arranged in a symmetrical design. The panel is dominated by a medallion bordered with a scroll motif encompassing the Latin monogram of Jesus Christ, IHS.

Senses and Sensibilities

February 14, 2008 — February 15, 2009
Nelson-Atkins Building, Gallery 222

Yun Shouping, Chinese. Cassia, Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
Purchase: Nelson Trust, 58-50/6.

For thousands of years Chinese painters have translated the sights, sounds, scents, tastes and textures of Chinese life into paintings. On view in the Chinese painting gallery will be 24 objects selected from the Museum's collection that demonstrate the mastery of Chinese artistic expression. Marc Wilson, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell Director/CEO of the Museum, worked with ten University of Kansas art history graduate students and their professor, Marsha Haufler, to select objects and write labels for this exhibition. Through ink and color on paper or silk the paintings explore the full range of how the painter expressed and evoked the five senses of Chinese landscapes, sounds, music, sights and smells. Through their work we can enter their world.

Free admission, no exhibition tickets required