KANSAS CITY, MO.- The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri celebrates the culmination of 2007 as a landmark year in the Museum’s history, which included the completion of the internationally acclaimed, Steven Holl-designed Bloch Building, the reinstallation of the Museum’s permanent collection, major photography, ancient, modern, and contemporary acquisitions, and a successful $385 million capital campaign.

“Everyone at the Nelson-Atkins could not be more proud of all we’ve achieved in the last year,” said Marc F. Wilson, the Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell Director/CEO of the Museum. “Our recent accomplishments exemplify the continuously growing vitality of this institution, which has been so generously supported by the Kansas City community. As we look forward to 2008, we’ll continue to build on this tremendous momentum as we celebrate our 75th anniversary with a full roster of exciting programming, including the renovation and reinstallation of our American and American Indian galleries, a number of groundbreaking exhibitions from our permanent collection, and many other initiatives.”

The Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins - The Bloch Building’s opening on June 9, 2007—which added 165,000 square feet and increased Museum space by more than 70 percent—was the centerpiece of a dramatic, institution-wide transformation that also included major renovations to the original building, a restoration of the Kansas City Sculpture Park, and a complete reinstallation of the permanent galleries, drawing from the more than 33,500 works in its encyclopedic collection. The slender, elongated building runs along the Eastern edge of the campus and provides a delicate counterpoint to the original 1933 Beaux-Arts building. Five lenses constructed of twin layers of glass walls emerge from the ground and create a luminous, undulating interplay between architecture and landscape.

The new Bloch Building is part of a bold strategic plan to greatly increase the Museum’s role in the community and region, and continues the Museum’s commitment to keep admission free every day for all visitors. The overall vision includes expanded programming, an increase in studio classrooms and educational resources, and a strengthened endowment to support these initiatives.

In conjunction with the Bloch Building’s opening, the Museum premiered three exceptional exhibitions: Manet to Matisse: Impressionist Master from the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection, Developing Greatness: The Origins of American Photography, from Dry Plate to Daguerreotype, and an installation of Kiki Smith’s work, Constellation.

The new building has been named the best of 2007 by several international publications:

· #1 Architectural Marvel of 2007—TIME Magazine

· Shortlisted as best museum opening of 2007—Apollo Magazine

· #1 architectural pick of 2007—The Boston Globe

· One of the five best buildings of 2007—Newsweek

· Best of 2007 Architecture—Chicago Tribune

Capital Campaign

In conjunction with the Bloch Building’s opening, the Museum raised $385 million as part of a major capital campaign. Of this, $200 million was generated for the Museum’s campus transformation project—including the Bloch Building, the reinstalled Kansas City Sculpture Park, the Ford Learning Center, and renovation of the original Nelson-Atkins Building—and $185 million was raised to strengthen the Museum’s endowment fund. While most institutions undergoing expensive building projects need to divert the majority of fundraising efforts to those expenses, the Nelson-Atkins ongoing trustee initiative will ensure that the Museum has the capital for continued institutional growth.

In addition to these fundraising initiatives, the Museum has been awarded numerous competitive national grants to aid with the development of specific programs or institutional areas of expertise, including (in 2007):

$300,000 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a pilot program to support collaborations between in-house curators and external scientists—a model program that shows how targeted funding for mid-size institutions can allow for the incorporation of scientifically innovative techniques into collections research and conservation

$75,000 by The Getty Foundation, Los Angeles for the publication of the Museum’s catalogue of American paintings

$57,710 by the U.S. Institute of Museum & Library Services (IMLS) to support the conservation of two collection objects

$25,000 by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to promote three photography exhibitions at the Nelson-Atkins drawn exclusively from the Hallmark Photographic Collection

2007 Acquisitions - The Nelson-Atkins’ institutional transformation has encouraged major art acquisitions and gifts, most notably the combination gift/purchase of the Hallmark Photographic Collection in 2005. In total, these efforts are just the beginning of a new level of achievement for the Nelson-Atkins, which will be carried through its 75th anniversary from December 2008 through December 2009.

The Museum has acquired many notable works over the past year, to complement and build its existing collection. With the goal of solidifying the Nelson-Atkins’ areas of strength and broadening its overall collection, especially to include works by underrepresented artists and genres, the Museum acquired the following exception works in 2007, among others:

Aaron Douglas (1899-1979). Study for Aspects of Negro Life: An Idyll of the Deep South, 1934. This rare painting is the first work by the legendary Harlem Renaissance artist to enter the Museum’s collection, and will be on view in early 2009 when the reinstalled American art galleries are open to the public.

El Anatsui, b. 1944. Dusuasa I, 2007. Dusuasa I, made of recycled aluminum liquor-bottle tops, achieved much critical acclaim in the Venice Biennale of 2007 and expands the Museum’s collection of work by contemporary African artists. The piece was acquired in 2007 as part of the William T. Kemper collecting initiative, which provided the Museum with $10 Million over 10 years for the acquisition of modern and contemporary works. This piece will be included in the upcoming exhibition Sparks: The William T. Kemper Collecting Initiative (May 3, 2008 – July 20, 2008).

Fred Wilson, American, b. 1954. The Ominous Glut, 2006. This piece allows the Museum to build its collection of modern and contemporary art by African American artists. Its elegant and polished glass surface and richness of detail convey a dynamic political message: with its pool and droplets of “oil” overwhelming a petite globe, Ominous Glut reminds us of a virtual compendium of oil-related issues threatening our fragile planet.

Kiki Smith, b. 1954. Hard Soft Bodies, 1992. The acquisition of Hard Soft Bodies –the first major work by Smith to enter the Museum’s collection – follows the Nelson-Atkins’ recent Kiki Smith exhibition, Constellation. The work was acquired in 2007 as part of the William T. Kemper collecting initiative, and was hand-selected by Robert Storr, co-curator of the Museum’s upcoming Sparks, which will present 35 modern and contemporary works of art acquired by the Museum over the past nine years as part of this generously supported collecting program. Hard Soft Bodies represents the Museum’s desire to not only acquire significant modern and contemporary works and works representative of key art movements, but also is testament to the Museum’s commitment to acquire work by important female artists.

Portrait of John Brown, ca. 1846-7. This rare and celebrated daguerreotype of abolitionist John Brown is one of only six daguerreotypes taken of Brown and possibly the earliest.