The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art holds one of the finest Asian art collections in America — so fine that the museum’s Chinese paintings gallery is a pilgrimage site for scholars from around the world.
The journey spans 3,000 years: monumental Buddhist sculpture anchored by the beloved wooden Guanyin of the Southern Seas, a full Chinese temple room, serene Japanese screens, Korean ceramics, Indian miniatures and one of the West’s great collections of Chinese furniture and early bronzes.
What makes it magical is the presentation — quiet, light-filled galleries in the original 1933 building where a single scroll painting can hold a room, and where the museum’s famous Chinese collection grew from purchases made in China itself in the 1930s.
Admission is free, as always. Give the Asian wings a slow hour and you’ll understand why the Nelson-Atkins punches so far above its city’s weight.
