Kansas City Art Institute

The Kansas City Art Institute is a private art school in Kansas City, Missouri. The college was founded in 1885 and is an accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and Higher Learning Commission. The institute has approximately 75 faculty members and 700 students, and offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

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History

The school was founded in 1885 when art enthusiasts formed the "Sketch Club" with the purpose of "talking over art matters in general and to judge pictures." Meetings were originally in private homes and then moved to the Deardorf Building at 11th and Main in downtown Kansas City. The club had its first exhibition in 1887 and 12 benefactors stepped forward to form the Kansas City Art Association and School of Design.
In 1927, Howard Vanderslice purchased the August R. Meyer residence, a Germanic castle entitled Marburg and its estate at 44th and Warwick Boulevard adjacent to the planned Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. A Wight and Wight addition was added to the building. The residence was later renamed "Vanderslice Hall" and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places along with another building on the campus—Mineral Hall. The campus has since expanded to.
In 1935, painter Thomas Hart Benton left New York City to teach at the school. Among the artists Benton influenced as a teacher at KCAI were Frederic James, Margot Peet, Jackson Lee Nesbitt, Roger Medearis, Glenn Gant, and Delmer J. Yoakum. Though Benton brought attention to the Art Institute, he was dismissed in 1941 after making disparaging references to, as he claimed, the excessive influence of homosexuals in the art world.
In 1992, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened on the west side of the campus. On the occasion of its 130th anniversary in 2015, the Kansas City Art Institute received an anonymous donation of $25 million, one of the largest gifts ever to an American art school. The money will be used to bolster the school's general endowment, improve and renovate its campus adjacent to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and, in the form of a challenge grant of $6 million, sharply increase the number of scholarships the school is able to give out.

Notable faculty

Thomas Hart Benton – Leader of Regionalist art movement; KCAI professor,
Anne Boyer – Pulitzer Prize Winning Author and Poet
Harold Bruder – Painter
Christiane Cegavske - Guggenheim Fellow in 2019
John de Martelly – Regionalist Printmaker,
Jill Downen (‘89 Painting) - Guggenheim Fellow in 2010
Dale Eldred – Sculptor, Environmentalist; Professor and Chair of Sculpture at KCAI
Ken Ferguson – Ceramicist, KCAI Professor Emeritus,
Glenn Gant – Regionalist painter, KCAI alumni and student of Benton, KCAI teacher,
Frederic James – Watercolor Painter, KCAI teacher,
Rob Roy Kelly - Graphic Designer and Printmaker, Chair of the Graphic Design Department
Cyan Meeks – Filmmaker and Video Artist
Wilbur Niewald – Watercolor Painter, chairman of the Painting and Printmaking Department, Senior Professor of Painting
Victor Papanek – UNESCO Designer/Mediator; Author; Chair of Graphic Design Department
John Douglas Patrick – Painter, Draughtsman, KCAI teacher circa 1909–1936, member French Salon 1886–1889, Earned Bronze Medal 1889 Universal Exposition
Stephen Sidelinger – Professor of Design

Notable lecturers

Elaine de Kooning – painter and visiting critic

Notable alumni

R. H. Barlow – author, anthropologist
Eric Bransby – muralist, painter
Paul Briggs – animator and storyboard artist for Walt Disney Animation Studios
Ellen Carey – photographer and professor
Nick Cave – performance artist
Dan Christensen – painter
James Claussen – lithographer
Richard Corben – comic book creator
John Steuart Curry – painter
Marc Davis – animator, Imagineer at Disney
Marisol Deluna – fashion designer
Walt Disney – animator, media entrepreneur, received honorary degree from KCAI
Karon Doherty – ceramicist
Angela Dufresne – painter
Ellen Fullman – inventor of Long-String instrument
Karen Glaser – photographer
April Greiman – graphic designer, known for bringing the New Wave design style to America
Amelia Ishmael – artist, art critic, curator, black metal specialist
Jay Jackson – animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios
Paul Jenkins – painter
Christian Holstad – conceptual artist
Peregrine Honig – artist and entrepreneur
Dennis Hopper – actor, attended Saturday classes during high school
Suzanne Klotz – painter, sculptor
Barry Kooser – artist, painter, animation filmmaker, background artist for Walt Disney Animation Studios
Arthur Kraft – sculptor and painter
Frank S. Land, former Imperial Potentate of the Shriners, founder of the Order of DeMolay
Ronnie Landfield – abstract painter
Doris Lee – Depression-era figurative painter
Roberto Lugo – potter and educator
Jim Mahfood – comic book and graffiti artist
Duard Marshall - Painter, lithographer, art restorer
Susan Mastrangelo – sculptor and painter
Christina McPhee – new media artist
Roger Medearis – Regionalist painter, student of Thomas Hart Benton
Cyan Meeks – video artist and filmmaker
Robert Morris – sculptor, performance and installation artist
Jackson Lee Nesbitt – artist known for regionalist etchings and lithographs, student of Benton
William F. Nolan – screenwriter, original Twilight Zone co-author
Theo Parrish – musician and DJ
Margot Peet – painter, student of Thomas Hart Benton
Chris Pitman - musician, Guns N’ Roses member
Donna Polseno – ceramic artist
Sam Prekop – photographer, musician with The Sea and Cake
Archer Prewitt – illustrator, musician with The Sea and Cake and The Coctails
Robert Rauschenberg – painter
Glen Rounds – author and illustrator
Mikel Rouse – musician with Tirez Tirez, developed Totalism (music)
Eric Sall – painter
Nelson Shanks – painter
Nancy Speir – children's book illustrator
Marjorie Strider – painter
Jim Suptic – sculptor, musician
Akio Takamori – ceramic artist
Marc Tedeschi – martial artist, designer, photographer, writer, educator
Robert Templeton – painter, painted the portrait of President Carter in the National Portrait Gallery
Stanley Whitney - painter
Christopher Willits – musician, sound and multimedia artist
Kathryn Zaremba - former Full House and Toothless star
Arnie Zimmerman – ceramicist