The Midwest as Muse

KANSAS CITY, MO.

:The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art will celebrate the art of the Midwest with the exhibition "Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse" February 5 to July 31.

The Midwest has inspired artists for two centuries, and its landscape and ways of life have played an important role in shaping the image of America.

"Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse" pays homage to the artistic accomplishments of Missouri's best-know painters, George Caleb Bingham and Thomas Hart Benton. The body of works on view attests to the region's imprint on a spectrum of artists who worked in the nation's heartland through World War II.

George Caleb Bingham was among the first American artists to live west of the Mississippi River, and with his scenes of frontier life, he earned the distinction of "the Missouri artist" by the mid Nineteenth Century, and representing this phase of Bingham's career is "The Jolly Flatboatmen," on loan from the Richard and Jane Manoogian Collection.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is at 4525 Oak Street. For information, 816-751-1278 or www.nelson-atkins.org.