Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particularly in issues of civil rights, poverty and African Americans—and in glamour photography. He is best remembered for his iconic photos of poor Americans during the 1940s, for his photographic essays for Life magazine, and as the director of the films Shaft, Shaft's Big Score and the semiautobiographical The Learning Tree.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art.
Terry Allen is an American singer-songwriter and visual artist from Lubbock, Texas. Allen's musical career spans several albums in the Texas country and outlaw country genres, and his visual art includes painting, conceptual art, performance, and sculpture, with a number of notable bronze sculptures installed publicly in various cities throughout the United States. He currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Marco Breuer is a German photographer. Much of his work is undertaken without the aid of a camera, aperture, or film, being instead produced through a combination of photogrammic, abrasive, and incisive techniques.
Bill Jacobson is an American photographer. He received a BFA from Brown University in 1977 and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1981.
Hugh Merrill was an American artist, recognized internationally in the contemporary printmaking community. He has written articles on the redefinition of art, printmaking, and education and has taught and lectured on printmaking at over 75 universities, colleges, and schools worldwide.
Bob Barry is an American actor and photographer based in Los Angeles, California. He is known for his "performance portraits" of jazz, R&B and blues musicians.
Cyan Meeks is an American video artist and filmmaker based in Kansas City. She is currently Associate Professor at Kansas City Art Institute in the Photography and Filmmaking Department.
Michael Vance Toombs is an American artist based in Kansas City. He is a painter, arts educator, and arts community project director. Toombs is specifically known for his interactive community murals in Kansas City, Missouri. Toombs is the founder of Storytellers Inc., an artists collective that designs and implements work with inner city youth and children in urban communities in Kansas and Missouri.
The Spencer Art Reference Library (SARL) is a library housed in the Bloch Building of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, in the United States. Its collection of over 260,000 visual arts related resources support the work of the museum.
The Artists' File Initiative (AFI) is an archival project established in 2015 and located in The Spencer Art Reference Library at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
NedRa Bonds is an American quilter, activist, and retired teacher, born and raised in the historic Quindaro neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. Bonds creates quilts and mixed media fiber dolls using fabric, beads, and symbolism to explore issues dealing with human rights, race, women, politics, and the environment. She is best known for her Quindaro Quilt, a quilt measuring 4 by 6 feet, detailing the important history of the Quindaro neighborhood and its role as part of the National Underground Railroad System of Historic Trails. As a community activist and educator, Bonds advocates for legislation, taught workshops locally and internationally, and attended the Earth Summit Conference on Environment and Development of the United Nations as a delegate in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Bonds is a practicing artist and retired teacher in Kansas City, Kansas. Her recent projects include her Common Threads quilt, commissioned by the Kansas City Chiefs for their Arrowhead Arts Collection, the Wak’ó Mujeres Phụ nữ Women Mural collaboration, sponsored by the Charlotte Street Foundation's Rocket Grant Program, in Lawrence, Kansas, and her recent cancer project. Bonds was appointed to the Kansas Arts Commission by Kansas Governor Joan Finney in 1992.
Carrie Hawks is a gender non-conforming director and animator. They are known for their work on Black Enuf.
Adam Magyar is a photographer and video artist.
Sonié Joi Thompson-Ruffin is an American fiber artist, author, designer, community organizer, and curator. Ruffin creates quilts using fabric, symbolism, and references to African textile motifs that explore issues dealing with human rights, race, and gender. Her work has been exhibited across the United States, Africa, and Europe, at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the White House Rotunda, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She has been a resident artist at the Charlotte Street Foundation and a resident curator at the American Jazz Museum. Thompson-Ruffin is one of the founding members of the African American Artists Collective, a group of African American artists in Kansas City. Thompson-Ruffin was selected to create the Nelson Mandela memorial coverlet by the South African Consulate and the Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral. Her work is held in collections such as the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, and others. Her work has been featured on the front covers of New Letters literary journal and of KC Studio Magazine.
Jason Piggie, is an American filmmaker and photographer, writer, and director. Piggie, who got his start in a high school photography class, captures images of everyday life, preferring his art "without enhanced manipulation." Piggie is the owner of a production company in Kansas City, Little Piggie Entertainment. Piggie received the first place award at the 3/5/7 Film Festival in the 5-minute category in 2009. In 2012, Piggie won best in show at an Arts KC show. Piggie is a member of the African American Artists Collective in Kansas City, which was recently awarded a Charlotte Street StartUp Residency.
Rita Blitt is an American painter, sculptor and filmmaker.
Ilah Marian Kibbey (1883–1957) was an American genre and landscape painter. Her series Airplane Impressions consisted of paintings of views from various flights she took over the Midwest.
David Stephenson is an American-Australian fine art photographer known for his representations of the sublime. His photographic subjects have included landscapes from America to Australia, the Arctic and Antarctica, the Southern Ocean, European sacred architecture, and day- and nighttime skyscapes. He has lived in Tasmania since 1982.
Laura Crehuet Berman is an American and Spanish artist and printmaker based in Kansas City. Much of her work consists of abstract multicolored monoprints that show recurrent forms overlapping to produce fields of shapes and hues. Her works are in the permanent collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City in 2001, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in 2012, and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas in 2016.
