The Spencer Art Reference Library has more than just books and magazines. Part of the collection includes the Museum Archives which contains some fascinating items. Some of these items are currently on view in the old library location (the ground floor of the Nelson-Atkins Buildign).
The one object that fascinates/creeps me out a little is the death mask of Mary Atkins. It is a photographic reproduction and I'm pretty sure it is not actual size. The face is rather serene but the whole concept is wierd to me. Next to it, is a photographic reproduction of a plaster cast of the right hand of William Rockhill Nelson. (In case you are wondering whose these people are, Nelson and Atkins are the two people for whom the Museum was named. You may read about them here.)
There are three documents in the case as well. One is a handwritten letter from Frederic Remington to J.J. Benson that is dated May 6, 1901. Another one is a letter from Eugene Delacroix to a French composer named Fromental Halevy. Bring your dictionary for this one because it is en Francais. Delacroix's Christ on the Sea of Galilee is on view in Gallery P29.
The remaining document is a typed draft of the final chapter of a book by Thomas Hart Benton called An Artist in America. The chapter is titled "And Still After" and it starts off indicating it was written some 16 years after the previous chapter. Benton sounds like his well-know cantankerous self complaining about the "turn" of the art world away from regionalism to abstraction. I guess I can't blame him. Things seemed to turn out positively this time as he mentions meeting the director of the Joslyn Museum in Omaha who requested Benton compile a retrospective of his work. Benton notes that since he had many unsold paintings at the time, it was not difficult to do. The exhibition was quite a success in Omaha and later in Wichita, Kansas.
It is amazing how the times change. The text was probably written sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The Nelson-Atkins hosted a retrospective of Benton's work in the 1980s (I believe it was the centennial of his birth in 1989) and it was immensly popular. Still today, visitors come from far and wide to view the Benton murals, especially the American Historical Epic which is currently hanging in Atkins Auditorium.
The original objects are kept in the archives and may be viewed by appointment.