Van Ackeren Collection Works On Display at Nelson-Atkins

More than 40 years ago, curators from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art helped Rockhurst University choose pieces of significance for what was then a new collection of religious art to be housed on campus.

Now, some of the very pieces from that collection will grace the walls at Kansas City’s premier art museum for the next year.

“Objects of Devotion: Highlights from Rockhurst University’s Van Ackeren Collection of Religious Art” opened last Friday at the Nelson, featuring paintings and sculptures from the University’s collection. With origins in a time during which many faithful could not read the Bible themselves, the museum said these objects offer “a glimpse into the hopes and fears of the people who worshipped with them hundreds of years ago. By 1300 in Western Europe, a form of spirituality emerged that emphasized emotional involvement.”

The Van Ackeren collection is normally housed at the Greenlease Gallery as the permanent counterpart to the rotating contemporary exhibits. But with the renovation of Sedgwick Hall, the gallery is closed until fall 2022, with the collection stored at the Nelson in the meantime. In addition to serving as an opportunity to make sure these pieces are viewable during that renovation, “Objects of Devotion” gives the Van Ackeren collection (which was the subject of a 2017 dissertation by Loren Whittaker, then a doctoral student at the University of Kansas) a much broader audience, said Kristy Peterson, director of the Center for Arts and Letters.

“This is a fabulous opportunity to allow a broader general public to experience part of our collection while our gallery is temporarily offline here on the Rockhurst campus,” she said. “Even when the Greenlease Gallery reopens in the fall of 2022, we will never see attendance the Nelson-Atkins Museum receives.”

“Objects of Devotion” is on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art through June 17, 2022.