The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art invites all people to explore the art in its care, and through its broad collection, the depths and complexities of human experiences.

We welcome and provide free access to everyone to enjoy and contemplate artistic creations from 5,000 years ago to present day. We believe that art has the ability to uplift, surprise, challenge, and transform. It gives expression not only to distant cultures and times, but also to immediate voices and issues, and provides avenues for exploring the world, past and present, and for informing our future.

We nurture the people who are dedicated to the museum’s success and who care for the collection and campus, and we support and learn from our audiences and our communities. Through this, we create ambassadors for a better society. With art as our focus, the Nelson-Atkins strives to create a sense of belonging for all people.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art arose from the aspirations of two individuals who likely never met, who had vastly different lives, but who each imagined a public art museum for Kansas City and the surrounding region. Both died more than 100 years ago and neither saw the museum become a reality.

William Rockhill Nelson, founder of The Kansas City Star and a real estate developer, was convinced that for a city to be truly civilized, art and culture were necessities. When he died in 1915, at the direction of his will the bulk of his estate was used to establish the William Rockhill Nelson Trust for the purchase of works of art.

Mary McAfee Atkins, a retired school teacher and real estate investor, was inspired by the art she encountered on trips to Europe. When she died in 1911, she provided the city with approximately one-third of her estate to purchase land for a public art museum.

The two estates were combined to build an art museum for the people of Kansas City. Buying art in the 1930s for the new galleries fell to the museum’s earliest curators and trustees, working with advisors and dealers. Visitors can experience those Depression-era decisions in the exhibition Origins: Collecting to Create the Nelson-Atkins, on view Aug. 14, 2021 to March 6, 2022.