Museums of the so-called Western world are currently engaged in a moment of reckoning. Instead of simply focusing on how rare, unique or masterfully made.
Tue, 03/09/2021
LAWRENCE – A new publication from the Spencer Museum of Art, “Perspectives on a Legacy Collection: Sallie Casey Thayer’s Gift to the University of Kansas,” investigates how the benefactor’s founding gift of more than 7,000 objects continues to influence KU’s art museum.
Since the Kansas City merchant’s widow donated her multifarious collection in 1917, KU has preserved it, displayed it and, since 1978, housed it in the Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, using it to educate and inspire generations of students and citizens alike. The centenary of the gift in 2017 inspired a retrospective exhibition, an original musical and now a 450-page, richly illustrated, printed reevaluation of the collection, published by the museum itself. Copies are available at the museum and at the KU Bookstore.