Spencer Museum of Art

The Spencer Museum of Art on the University of Kansas campus is free to enter and deserves more attention than it gets from visitors focused on Lawrence's downtown. The collection spans several thousand years and multiple continents — particularly strong in Asian art, European paintings, and American art — and the building itself is well-designed with good natural light in the galleries.

The museum actively loans works for teaching across the university and has an unusually engaged relationship with the campus community. Special exhibitions rotate regularly. It's one of the better university art museums in the Midwest, and since admission is free it costs nothing to find out.

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The Spencer Museum's founding collection came from Sallie Casey Thayer, a Kansas City resident who spent decades amassing Asian art — particularly Japanese prints and Chinese bronzes — in the early 20th century. She donated the entire collection to the University of Kansas in 1917. The museum named in her memory opened in 1978 and has grown substantially around this Asian core.

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