Art

Washington University established the first Art Museum west of the Mississippi, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, on this date.

The very talented sculptress from Christian College in Columbia, Vinnie Ream, at age 18 was given the commission by Congress to sculpt the statue of Abraham Lincoln to stand in the National Capital Rotunda.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art at 45th and Oak streets in Kansas City opened on this day.

World-class culture...In Columbia? You bet! Columbians know what visitors discover, that they have access to high culture right in mid-Missouri.

Artist David Plank can’t remember a time when he wasn’t drawn to birds. While his boyhood friends were busy kicking soccer balls and hitting baseballs, David was in the woods of Salem with paper and pencil, capturing the details of a perched barn swallow or a purple martin.