In 2007, Time magazine ranked the museum's new Bloch Building number one on its list of "The 10 Best (New and Upcoming) Architectural Marvels" which considered candidates from around the globe.

The museum was built on the grounds of Oak Hall, the home of Kansas City Star publisher William Rockhill Nelson (1841–1915).

In March 1932 the cautious Trustees of the Nelson Art Gallery, hesitant about naming a full-fledged Director, appointed the graduate student as their assistant on a trial basis.

[15] Sickman, like Paul Gardner, was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army as a member of the Monuments Men, serving from 1942 to 1945 in England, India, and China.

Among the many successes of his tenure, the most important was the major exhibition "Archaeological Finds of the People's Republic of China", which ran from April 20-June 8, 1975 and attracted about 280,000 visitors.

The exhibition of 385 pieces was a result of the détente between the United States and Communist China that Richard Nixon's 1972 trip to that country had begun.

Organized to commemorate the American Bicentennial, the show opened at the Hayward Gallery in London, England, running from October 1976 to January 1977.

It was part of $200 million in renovations to the museum that included the Ford Learning Center which is home to classes, workshops, and resources for students and educators.

The rest of us can draw comfort from the fact that public works of our own day and age can equal or surpass the grand achievements of past generations ...

Seen from the north plaza, the addition's main entrance gently defers to the old building, the crystalline form suggesting a ghostlike echo of the austere stone facade.

"It will be thrilling to have these ancient works of art in our midst, to imagine the hands that created them and the importance these objects played in Egyptian culture.

What a privilege to welcome objects from one of the most significant archaeological sites in Egypt – the Valley of the Queens," said Julián Zugazagoitia[26]The museum's European painting collection is highly prized.

It includes works by Caravaggio, Jusepe de Ribera, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Petrus Christus, Gustave Courbet, El Greco, Giambattista Pittoni, Guercino, Alessandro Magnasco, Giuseppe Bazzani, Corrado Giaquinto, Cavaliere d'Arpino, Gaspare Traversi, Giuliano Bugiardini, Titian, Hieronymus Bosch, Rembrandt, Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Peter Paul Rubens, Eugène Fromentin, Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Vincent van Gogh.

[27] In early 2016, The Temptation of St. Anthony, a small panel long attributed to the workshop of Hieronymus Bosch, was credited to the painter himself after forensic investigation of its underpainting.

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).

One of the most famous nazi-era pieces is a still life, Les Boules de Neige, by Pierre Bonnard, which was held in the Altaussee salt mine and taken from the French banker David David-Weill.

The museum has one of the best collections of Chinese antique furniture in the country, including one of the celebrated group of glazed pottery luohans from Yixian (c.

[citation needed] The Nelson-Atkins began collecting African art in the 1930s, with many notable acquisitions including two 17th-century cast brass objects from the Benin Kingdom in Nigeria in 1958.

In 2012,[37] African art gallery curator Nii Quarcoopome worked to add more content and ways for audiences to interact by including videos and photographs showing visitors how objects are used in ceremonies or everyday life.

The speakers included Julián Zugazagoitia,[18] director and exhibition curator at Nelson Atkins,[41] and art historian Peter Stepan who wrote a book on the subject.

[43] Gaylord Torrence, the curator at the time of the Native American department, was able to acquire a majority of items with donations from Morton Sosland[44] and other people.

[47] It also houses historical pieces like pottery, baskets, bead/quill/textile works, and paintings from the Arikara, Mississippian, Algonquian, Plains, Lakota, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Chumash, Navajo, and Pueblo tribes.

[50] The museum also has contemporary work in the Bloch Building by Willem de Kooning, Fairfield Porter, Wayne Thiebaud, Richard Diebenkorn, Agnes Martin, Bridget Riley, and Alfred Jensen.

In 2023, the museum won the painting "Sailing" by Thomas Eakins from a bet made by the Philadelphia Museum of Art after the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl against the Philadelphia Eagles[51]This collection covers artistic work produced from the 1860s -1970s, including work of Cubism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Dada, Surrealism, Bauhaus and Abstract Expressionism.

Pieces include works from Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Joseph Cornell, Juan Gris, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Jacques Lipchitz, Roberto Matta Echaurren, Joan Miró, Ben Nicholson, Emil Nolde, Yves Tanguy, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Grace Hartigan, Robert Motherwell, Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore, Marcel Duchamp, Adolph Gottlieb, and Man Ray.

[citation needed] The Photography galleries in the Bloch Building display a survey of the creative history of the medium from daguerreotypes to 21st-century processes.

It is primarily American in focus, and includes works from photographers such as Southworth & Hawes, Carleton Watkins, Timothy O'Sullivan, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange, Homer Page, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, Andy Warhol, Todd Webb, and Cindy Sherman, among others.Contemporary art is located in the Bloch building and is defined in Nelson-Atkins as art from 1960 to present day.

Art pieces are either gifts from The William T. Kemper Collecting Initiative or acquired or donated by famous artists like:[54][55] Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Anish Kapoor, Robert Rauschenberg, Yinka Shonibare, Duane Hansen, Louise Nevelson, Donald Judd, Robert Arneson, Jim Dine, Nancy Graves, Bridget Riley, Elizabeth Murray, Robert Mangold, Kerry James Marshall, El Anatsui, Raqib Shaw, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, David Smith, Richard Diebenkorn, Richard Estes, Duane Hanson, Claes Oldenburg, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Bridget Riley, Ronnie Landfield, Martin Puryear, and Deborah Butterfield The Noguchi Sculpture Court houses contemporary sculptures that were gifted by the Hall Family Foundation's Modern Sculpture Initiative.

[54] Ranging from medieval stained glass to 21st-century furniture from Kansas City artists, the museum houses pieces of architecture and decorative arts.

Hall Sculpture Park, designed by Dan Kiley, contains the largest collection of monumental bronzes by Henry Moore in the United States.