Reopening Of The Chinese Galleries At The Nelson-Atkins Museum

The Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas, City, Mo., opened in 1933 to acclaim, not only for the size of its endowments (it was said to have more money than the Metropolitan Museum of Art), but also for the elaborate six-story structure designed by architects Wight and Wight Although there were riches in Kansas City, on the other side of the world, China was experiencing a beggar-thy-neighbor economy. Consequently, many treasures that had been closely held found their way to market — and to the museum, whose focus was to represent China’s highest achievements in every medium and from every historical period. The ten Chinese galleries at the Nelson-Atkins fell into a state of neglect as the United States became pre-occupied with global challenges. Then, in 2009, Asian art scholar Colin C. Mackenzie was named senior curator of early Chinese art. His brief, as he states, was to “re-evaluate the galleries” that had not been assessed since the late 1960s, the collection and determine the strategy for updating them. On January 28, the new Chinese Galleries opened. The exhibition is divided into three themes — The Silk Road, Ancestors and Ritual, and Luxury in the Tomb — and with more than 7,500 items in the collection, great care as been taken to select the finest to go on view.