Spencer Art Reference Library

The Spencer Art Reference Library will be open this coming Monday, Martin Luther King Day, from 1 - 5. The library’s collection includes many materials that explore the work and life of Martin Luther King through photographs and exhibitions. Stop by to see these books or any of the 270,000 items in the library’s collection.

Happy New Year! What do Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Buster Keaton’s Go West and Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, Army Camp Harmony Blues all have in common? They were all copyrighted in 1925 and are some of many works that entered the public domain in the new year. These works are now free to use, sample, and build on in your own creative work. https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2021/

Can’t get enough of Frida Kahlo? Be sure to catch the upcoming Tivoli film screening and conversation on Frida Kahlo. https://nelson-atkins.org/tivoli/ Before or after the film, you can also explore Kahlo through the over 65 titles in the Spencer Art Reference Library that examine this artist's life and work.

Today begins the library new hours. We’ll be open: Monday: 10 5 Thursday & Friday: 10 5 First Saturday of the month: 10 5... *no first Saturday hours in January Stop by today, or during the week, to see the display of staff picks, browse the book sale or the library’s wide selection of current art journals and magazines.

The Spencer Art Reference Library will be CLOSED Thursday, November 26 - Saturday, November 28... The library will resume regular open hours: Monday, November 30

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art stands with Black Lives Matter. We stand against police brutality, institutionalized racism, and systemic discrimination that targets Black Americans. Read more on our website: https://nelson-atkins.org/black-lives-matter/. #BlackLivesMatter

Need some ideas to expand your cooking repertoire or maybe you’re starting to prepare for the holidays? Find some inspiration in some of the over 10,000 historical cookbooks that are included in the Cookbook and Home Economics Collection of the Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, available through the Internet Archive. We don’t claim to have looked through all 10,000 but here are a few that sound intriguing, The Cook Book of Left-Overs; A Collection of 400 Reliable Recipes For the Practical Housekeeper, the 1893 The World’s Fair Recipe Book, or the 1898 vegetarian cookbook, The Golden Age Cook-Book. If you find a new favorite, let us know.

In honor of Halloween, we’re featuring this cloaked creature from the Karen Gould Collection of Medieval Manuscripts. This creature, often called a drollery, is featured at the bottom of a leaf from the St. Albans Bible, created in 14th century France. These figures did not always serve the text; some illustrations were simply meant to amuse the viewer or as practice for an illustrator. Learn more about this collection and drolleries in medieval book illumination by stopping by the library. KCG #52: St. Albans Bible, Manuscript Leaf, Gift of Lewis Gould.

For this week’s final and special Halloween edition of Celebrities in the Stacks -- and on the eve of Halloween -- we are sharing with you a sample of the museum’s archival correspondence and ephemera regarding legendary horror icon, Vincent Price. Most probably associate Price with his iconic horror legend status, starring in such horror film classics as The Fly and The House on Haunted Hill, or think of his booming voice used to conjure up a spooky scene at the end of Mic...Continue reading

For this week’s Archives Month Celebrities in the Stacks post, we're featuring correspondence from artist Georgia O'Keeffe to Nelson-Atkins Museum Director Laurence Sickman. In September of 1956, Sickman visited O’Keeffe at her home in Abiquiú, New Mexico, northwest of Santa Fe. O'Keeffe had purchased the property in 1945 and lived there 1949-1984. How Sickman connected with her is not entirely clear, and it may have been a one-time experience since we have no evidence of s...ubsequent visits, but her letter and telegram to Sickman indicate a mutual fondness and friendship. Though not an extensive correspondence, the letter highlighted here gives an intriguing window into O’Keeffe’s daily life -- puttering in the kitchen, collecting rocks, and her satisfaction and contentment in country life. In addition, her big, bold, flowy, and undulating handwriting looks like just what you might expect from O’Keeffe!

For this week’s Archives Month Celebrities in the Stacks post, we are featuring correspondence between influential painter Donald Roller Wilson and then Assistant Director Ted Coe, surrounding Wilson’s one-man exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins in fall of 1970. With collections of his works hanging in the homes of such famous comedians as Steve Martin, Carol Burnett, Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman), and at the estate of the late Robin Williams, Wilson’s paintings are most widely...Continue reading

On this Indigenous Peoples' Day, stop by the library to check out our book display, up through November, with resources on contemporary Native American art and artists, textiles, pottery, history, and more!

As we celebrate Archives Month 2020, be on the lookout for weekly posts highlighting items from the museum’s archives. We are taking as our theme Celebrities in the Stacks, featuring fun finds of connections between the museum and well-known folks. Our first subject, Harold Woodbury Parsons, may not be familiar to many of you, but he was something of a local celebrity in certain circles in Kansas City in the early 1930s and larger than life in the art world of that time, ...according to a biographer. As the Nelson-Atkins’ advisor for European art, his frequent visits to Kansas City to give lectures and show off recent acquisitions in off-site exhibits before the museum opened were highly-anticipated events. The Kansas City Star often wrote about his travels and activities on behalf of the museum. Born into a wealthy Boston family, Parsons attended Harvard but opted not to return after leaving his junior year to study German in Germany. While there he developed an interest in classical art that led him to Athens and Rome, where he settled. He was soon on his way to collecting and advising, building a reputation for his eye, connections, and negotiating skills. Parsons enjoyed a bit of a jet set lifestyle, living in Italy half of the year, sailing on his yacht in the Mediterranean, and parlaying his connections in Europe into art purchases for his clients, which included the then relatively new institutions of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, and later the Joslyn. He had a hand in the purchase of many of the most recognizable European works at the Nelson-Atkins.

The library is open to the public, with some added COVID protocols! We've created this video to help our new and returning patrons know what to expect when they visit the Spencer Art Reference Library. Our hours are updated, now they are Mondays from 10 AM - 5 PM, Thursdays and Fridays from 10 AM - 5 PM, and Saturdays from 10 AM - 4 PM. Please call ahead and schedule an appointment to visit today!

For the past two years during the Deaf Cultural Festival we've enjoyed Stephanie Wilcox's ASL storytime here in the library. This year, Deaf storytellers Stephanie Wilcox and Marie Qualls recorded four fairy tales in ASL for a virtual storytime. Check them out at the link below, along with other wonderful things the museum and our community partners, Kansas School for the Deaf, the Whole Person and Museum of Deaf Arts and Culture put together for the first virtual Deaf Cultural Festival at the Nelson!

The Spencer Art Reference Library is pleased to be open with new hours and safety protocols in place. Please visit the library’s webpage for details about hours and scheduling your library visit. Pre-request the materials you want from the library's catalog, browse new additions to the collection or take advantage of the reading room’s Wi-Fi.

100 Years | 100 Women is an interactive database that celebrates and archives work of 100 women artists and cultural creators. Launched this year on the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th ammendment, this database highlights the work of artists like Carrie Mae Weems, Toshi Reagon, and 98 more women who were commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory, in partnership with lead partner National Black Theatre and other New York City cultural institutions. Check out the free, interactive database below for more information!

The library is happy to be able to welcome visitors back starting today, August 27, 2020! To make social distancing possible, the library reading room will be able to accommodate fewer people. To ensure you’re able to use the library at a specific time please schedule your visit in advance through the "Contact US" link on our website (linked below) or by calling our Reference Desk at 816-751-1216. Drop-in visitors will be welcomed as space permits. All visitors will need to s...ign-in to facilitate the museum’s support of contact tracing and follow safety protocols including wearing gloves, when browsing the reading room stacks, and a mask during your visit. Library Hours Monday, 10 5 Thursday & Friday: 10 5 Saturday: 10 4

Today, on the 100 year anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment, we are sharing the stories of the founding women of the Nelson-Atkins in the online exhibition, "Generations: Women in the Early History of the Nelson-Atkins. Drawn from the museum’s archives, it explores how women like Mary Atkins, Ida Nelson and Laura Nelson Kirkwood, Ethlyne Jackson, Lindsay Hughes, and their colleagues laid the foundation for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s celebrated buildin...g, world-class collection, and innovative and responsive programming. The online exhibition can be viewed here: https://g.co/arts/y3QLydoZ4AmzPrFM6 #19thAmendment #HiddenHerstory #WomensVote100 Image: Group staff photograph on museum grounds (around 1943.) The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art