Nelson-Atkins Museum Opens Renovated Chinese Galleries to Celebrate New Year

Written by Karen Thornberry Monday, 30 January 2012 22:55

Kansas City, Missouri.- The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has completed renovation on four of its Chinese galleries, and they will be opened to the public at the start of the Museum’s Chinese New Year celebration, which began on Friday, January 27th. The main Chinese gallery and the Temple Room re-opened in 2010 and involved a complete re-organization of displays, along with the addition of a number of important pieces that have been off display for decades, including a 6th-century stone tomb gateway and three-color-glazed Tang dynasty tomb figures. Lighting has been added to the coffered ceiling in the Temple Room, where Guanyin of the Southern Seas majestically sits, so visitors can now see the intricately carved dragon pattern in the concentric gilded wood framework. Linked to the main Chinese galleries are two newly renovated galleries that explore the mysterious world of ritual and ancestors  in ancient China, as well as tombs. Tombs were repositories for valuables such as jade carvings, lacquered vessels and ceramic sculptures. “Luxury items were commonly placed in tombs in ancient China,” said Colin Mackenzie, senior curator of Chinese art.

“Limitations of space forced us to choose only items of the highest quality, so we were very selective as we looked through our early Chinese art collection, which is extensive.” The luxury items include a jade ritual disc with openwork dragons that is world renowned and a pair of spectacular gilt bronze and glass-inlaid fittings comprising interwoven dragons and birds complete with small monkeys seated on top. Also on view are a magnificent gilt bronze ring door handle in the form of a dragon face, lacquer drinking cups and an exceptional bronze mirror on a gilt bronze stand. “The ritual bronze vessels used in ceremonies to offer food and alcohol to ancestors were supreme symbols of communication between the rulers and the ancestors,” said Mackenzie. “The vessels became the embodiment of religious power.” The vessel type known as jia is comprised of soaring tripod legs, a wasted body with a large handle and pillars rising from the mouth rim. A grain vessel with a round bowl and large handles has a hollow, square base from which hangs a small bell. Music was important in the rituals and the exhibition includes a large, bronze bell that emits two tones, a unique characteristic of ancient Chinese bells. “I have admired these objects from afar for most of my life,” said Mackenzie. “Now I have the honor of examining and truly appreciating their exceptional artistic qualities. It has been a great privilege to work on this renovation.”


There are also ceremonial weapons in jade and bronze, as well as an axe that was used for decapitating prisoners. Many of the objects in the renovated galleries are included in widely published standard books on Chinese art. In addition to the opening of the new galleries, the museum is celebrating completion of a richly illustrated catalogue of 27 works of art from the collection: Masterworks of Chinese Art: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The book highlights masterpieces from the museum’s world-renowned  collection of more than 8,000 works. The catalogue is authored by Mackenzie, with contributions by Ling-en Lu, assistant curator of Chinese art. Masterworks of Chinese Art is available in the Museum Store for $29.95.

When the massive Beaux Art Nelson-Atkins’ Building opened in 1933, newspapers nationwide reported visitors “amazed,” “gasping at its innovations and marveling at its luxury.”  Still, times being what they were in the Great Depression, operations were modest: only three telephones serviced the entire building; lights in the galleries were turned off when people left a room; at opening and closing times, a huge bell was rung manually. Though the Museum has grown its collection, its audience (and its telephones), just as in 1933, bringing people together with art is central to all current Museum endeavors. And that goes for the major campus transformation project, the new Bloch Building as its jewel. The Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City is recognized nationally and internationally as one of America’s finest art museums. The Nelson-Atkins serves the community by providing access and insight into its renowned collection of more than 33,500 art objects and is best known for its Asian art, European and American paintings, photography, modern sculpture, and new American Indian and Egyptian galleries. Housing a major art research library and the Ford Learning Center, the Museum is a key educational resource for the region. The institution-wide transformation of the Nelson-Atkins has included the 165,000-square-foot Bloch Building expansion and renovation of the original 1933 Nelson-Atkins Building. 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, Cavaliere d'Arpino, Gaspare Traversi, Giuliano Bugiardini, Titian, Rembrandt, and Peter Paul Rubens, as well as Impressionists Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas , Claude Monet , Camille Pissarro and Vincent van Gogh , among others. It also has fine Late Gothic and Early Italian Renaissance paintings by; Jacopo del Casentino (The Presentation of Christ in the Temple), Giovanni di Paolo and Workshop, Bernardo Daddi and Workshop, Lorenzo Monaco, Gherardo Starnina (The Adoration of the Magi), and Lorenzo di Credi. It has German and Austrian Expressionist paintings by Max Beckmann, Karl Hofer (Record Player), Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Oskar Kokoschka (Pyramids of Egypt). 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. 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 . It also has fine Contemporary Paintings and Creations in the Bloch Building by; Willem de Kooning , Fairfield Porter ("Mirror"), Wayne Thiebaud ("Bikini Girl"), Richard Diebenkorn , Agnes Martin, Bridget Riley , and Alfred Jensen. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.nelson-atkins.org

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