Springfield Regional Arts Council

About Arts Adventures

The Springfield Regional Arts Council has put together a slate of exciting destinations for its 2008 Arts Adventures and invites all members of the community to hop on board for these fun "road trips".  As an “art roadie”, you’ll be travelling along with other art lovers and part way through the journey, the Arts Council’s resident “art expert”, Bucky Bowman, will give a lecture on fascinating details of what you will be seeing at the various locations.   Here is the schedule of planned trips:

Saturday, July 19 – Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Liberty Memorial, Kansas City
A coffee reception will be held in the Arts Council office at 7:30a.m. and the tour will depart at 8:00a.m. and return to the Creamery by 6:30p.m. The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by the Eero Saarinen-trained Latvian-American architect, Gunnar Birkerts, is where Thomas Hart Benton served for years as an art teacher to Jackson Pollock and other contemporary artists. The museum is known for its ever-changing cutting-edge exhibits. The group will enjoy a dutch-treat lunch stop at Café Sebastienne where the walls are covered with one painting, “The History of Art”, by Frederick J. Brown. After lunch, the adventurers will tour the $102million restoration of the Liberty Memorial which celebrated the conclusion of the “war to end all wars”. Marechal Foch and General John J. Pershing were among the dignitaries who attended its opening on Nov. 11, 1926. Cost for this tour is $60/persons and includes entry fees and Champagne on the return.

Saturday, August 16 – Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa
Former mansion of Waite and Genevieve Phillips (of Phillips 66) from 1927 to 1938, the museum is Tulsa’s “crown jewel” and Oklahoma’s leading privately-supported art museum featuring European art of the 18th and 19th centuries, early Tuscan paintings and Venetian paintings of the 15th and 16th centuries and High Renaissance and Baroque paintings of the 16th through 18th centuries. Asian ceramics and paintings as well as American landscape paintings, African and Native American collections, contemporary craft, sculpture and decorative arts are all included in the three-story museum. Additionally, there are 23 acres of formal gardens as well as a wonderful gift shop.
A mid-way return dutch-treat dinner stop will be made. Cost is $60/person including entry fee and Champagne.

Saturday, Sept. 27 – Sprint Center (Kansas City) and Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS)
The Sprint Center which opened in Oct. 2007 with a concert by Sir Elton John, features an 18,500 seat arena and is home to the College Basketball Experience and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame which was designed by Edwin Schlossberg (husband of Caroline Kennedy). A dutch-treat lunch will be taken at the popular Webster House. The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art was designed by Kyu Sung Woo Architects and houses the collections of Jerome and Margaret Nerman of American modern art featuring works of Frank Stella, Elsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns, Mark Rothko,and others. After a 6:30a.m. coffee reception in the Arts Council offices, the tour will depart at 7:00a.m.and return by 7:00p.m. Cost is $60/person including entry fees and Champagne on the return.

Saturday, Oct. 25 – Gilcrease Museum of Art, Tulsa
The Gilcrease houses the world’s largest collection of art and artifacts of the American West and is one of the country’s best facilities for the preservation and study of American art and history. Set among 460 acres of rolling hills, the museum features paintings by Malvina Hoffman, Will James, Frederic Remington, Charles Russell and N.C. Wyeth, among others. A dutch-treat lunch will be taken at the museum’s Osage Restaurant. Coffee will be served in the Arts Council office at 7:30a.m. and the tour will depart the Creamery at 8:00a.m. and return by 9:00p.m.  Cost is $60/person including entrance fee and Champagne on the return.

To book a space for any or all of these exciting Arts Adventures, contact the Springfield Regional Arts Council, 417-862-ARTS(2787).

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