Spencer Museum of Art

The Spencer Museum of Art is an art museum operated by the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. History In 1917, the Kansas City art collector Sallie Casey Thayer donated her collection of over seven thousand works of art, primarily from Asia and Europe to the University of Kansas to form a museum in order to encourage the study of fine arts in the Midwestern United States. In 1928, the school established the University of Kansas Museum of Art, with Thayer's collection as the basis, within Spooner Hall. By the 1960s, under the directorship of Marilyn Stokstad, the Museum of Art outgrew the space. In 1978, Helen Foresman Spencer, another female Kansas City collector, made a substantial gift to fund the construction of a new space, under the directorship of Charles C. Eldredge. The new building was designed by the architect and Class of 1926 alum Robert E. Jenks in the Neoclassical style from Indiana limestone. The museum was renamed in honor of Helen to the Spencer Museum of Art. From 1976 to 1983, Elizabeth Broun served as Curator of Prints and Drawings, as well as a stint as Acting Director from 1982 to 1983, succeeding Eldredge. Since then, the museum has only been led by three individuals: Jay Gates, Andrea Norris, and Saralyn Reece Hardy. In 2007, the Spencer Museum of Art grew when over nine thousand objects from the former University of Kansas Museum of Anthropology were transferred to its possession. The collection included a wide variety of global cultural materials, with emphasis on Native American materials.