Central Library
This Grandfather Floor Clock, produced by Howard Miller, features a white, porcelain-like dial framed by a hinged top door with a composition of mahogany veneers in a sunburst pattern. The dial includes black Roman numbers with black hour, minute, and second hands. Text on the clock on the upper center of the clock face features the manufacturer, HOWARD MILLER. Additional text on the left of the clock face includes Silent, Night Off, Strike. Text featured on the right of the clock face includes Whitt. St. Mich. Western Silent.
This beautifully framed enlarged reproduction print from the January 1910 edition of "Engineering News" is from an article entitled "A Comprehensive Sewer System for Kansas City, Mo." The article highlights the brief study of the needs and local conditions necessary for creating an outline for a comprehensive sewer system.
Known for his American Gothic painting, Grant Wood was a proponent of regionalism in the arts and developed an aesthetic for rural midwestern life in the 1930s. Wood drew on characteristics of Northern Renaissance art and Art Deco design to create a vision of the American landscape more idealized than what was experienced then as the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. The struggle and destitution characteristic of the Depression are left out of this painting of Stone City Iowa, presenting instead a quiet but vibrant view of a farming homestead nestled in a river valley.
The chalk drawing depicted here highlights the spider sculpture by Louise Bourgeois as it stands predominately in front of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The blue, green, and grey sky offer a soft contrast to the sharp angles of the museum while the legs of the spider seem to echo the sharpness.
While the date for this particular etagere is unknown, it is a very nice example of an etagere. Etageres would have been used to hold and display ornaments and bric-a-brac for show. This particular piece is a four tiered etagere made of brass, glass, and orange marble. The top two tiers have orange marble display shelves while the two lower tiers are made of six beveled glass pieces with three pieces of glass to each shelf. Acting as the body of the etagere, ornate floral and tassel brass elements juxtapose functional brass structural elements.
Kansas City-born author and photographer Bruce Mathews tends to write about and photograph the city in its best light. Here, the sun has just set on Union Station and the warm hues of the sky and street lights complement the Station alit in purple. Mathews has written several books about Kansas City, including the most recent "The Kansas City Spirit: Stories of Service Above Self" published in 2012 a few months before this photograph was taken.
Through the thick brush strokes and swatched fields of this later Vincent Van Gogh painting one can make out a row of dwellings built into the hillside. van Gogh painted this scene from Chaponoval, an agricultural village outside of Auvers sur Oise, France. In the 1890s when this painting was created, Chaponoval remained relatively untouched by the Industrial Revolution raving elsewhere in France and Europe. The cottages depicted here convey a snapshot of this way of life maintained in the building technique using sandstone and heavily thatched roofs.
Gabriella Polony Mountain's work includes four major themes. The first three themes are clearly recognizable as the Cosmos, Nature, and Figural works with the fourth theme encompassing history, philosophy, and culture. In her life as an artist, Polony Mountain worked with many different medium including mosaics, weavings, sculpture, stained glass, and repousse. Repousse, or repoussage, is a metalworking technique in which a malleable metal is shaped by hammering the reverse side of a sheet a metal. On the other side, a low relief design is revealed.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Presidential Libraries Act of 1955, the Postal Service honored presidential libraries and their place in American history with this stamp issuance. Presidential libraries are established in the home state of each president after he or she leaves office. The Postal Service has chosen the Seal of the President of the United States to feature on the Presidential Libraries stamp.
This pennant commemorates the First National Bank of Kansas City. Established in 1886 by Col. James Abernathy and James Lombard, the First National Bank was eventually housed in the building now utilized by the Kansas City Public Library's Central Branch. The Library pays homage to much of the Bank's original features and has dedicated a section of the first floor to the First National Bank Exhibition near One North. To the right of that exhibition is this bronze pennant, dedicated along with the exhibition by the Taylor S. and Patti H. Abernathy Charitable Trust.
This print illustrates a three-tiered fountain comprised of two simple bowls and receiving pool, each separated by shafts decorated with shell and floral motifs. The text across the bottom reads "Fountain Elevation" with a scale of 1"=1'-0". Stylized floral motifs adorn the corners of the print creating a border around the fountain that otherwise appears to hover alone in the drawings' atmosphere and ultimately emphasizes its ethereal nature.
The original painting that inspired this print had a perplexing effect on its viewers. Four girls appear on a bridge, standing close to one another and peering out over the water that belies the popular Norwegian resort Aasgaardstrand. The foremost figure is turned toward the viewer, nearly faceless with no distinguishable features. Her ambiguity implants an eeriness in the scene. The bridge trails off, swerving right out of the frame just below a twilight-toned sky.
This bookcase stands tall with varying cabinet spaces and ornate carving detail. The lower third of the piece is a cabinet space enclosed by wooden doors. Thin oval wreaths adorn each of the doors. Above these doors are two drawers decorated with a simple swag. The upper portion of this piece is a three-shelved bookcase with glass doors, above which exists the same swag pattern. Four ornate lion heads are carved into the piece. Two are located on either side of the top of the glass doors with the other two located on either side of the drawers.
This bookcase stands tall with varying cabinet spaces and ornate carving detail. The lower third of the piece is a cabinet space enclosed by wooden doors. Thin oval wreaths adorn each of the doors. Above these doors are two drawers decorated with a simple swag. The upper portion of this piece is a three-shelved bookcase with glass doors, above which exists the same swag pattern. Four ornate lion heads are carved into the piece. Two are located on either side of the top of the glass doors with the other two located on either side of the drawers.
This bookcase stands tall with varying cabinet spaces and ornate carving detail. The lower third of the piece is a cabinet space enclosed by wooden doors. Thin oval wreaths adorn each of the doors. Above these doors are two drawers decorated with a simple swag. The upper portion of this piece is a three-shelved bookcase with glass doors, above which exists the same swag pattern. Four ornate lion heads are carved into the piece. Two are located on either side of the top of the glass doors with the other two located on either side of the drawers.
This bookcase stands tall with varying cabinet spaces and ornate carving detail. The lower third of the piece is a cabinet space enclosed by wooden doors. Thin oval wreaths adorn each of the doors. Above these doors are two drawers decorated with a simple swag. The upper portion of this piece is a three-shelved bookcase with glass doors, above which exists the same swag pattern. Four ornate lion heads are carved into the piece. Two are located on either side of the top of the glass doors with the other two located on either side of the drawers.
This bookcase stands tall with varying cabinet spaces and ornate carving detail. The lower third of the piece is a cabinet space enclosed by wooden doors. Thin oval wreaths adorn each of the doors. Above these doors are two drawers decorated with a simple swag. The upper portion of this piece is a three-shelved bookcase with glass doors, above which exists the same swag pattern. Four ornate lion heads are carved into the piece. Two are located on either side of the top of the glass doors with the other two located on either side of the drawers.
This bookcase stands tall with varying cabinet spaces and ornate carving detail. The lower third of the piece is a cabinet space enclosed by wooden doors. Thin oval wreaths adorn each of the doors. Above these doors are two drawers decorated with a simple swag. The upper portion of this piece is a three-shelved bookcase with glass doors, above which exists the same swag pattern. Four ornate lion heads are carved into the piece. Two are located on either side of the top of the glass doors with the other two located on either side of the drawers.
This bookcase stands tall with varying cabinet spaces and ornate carving detail. The lower third of the piece is a cabinet space enclosed by wooden doors. Thin oval wreaths adorn each of the doors. Above these doors are two drawers decorated with a simple swag. The upper portion of this piece is a three-shelved bookcase with glass doors, above which exists the same swag pattern. Four ornate lion heads are carved into the piece. Two are located on either side of the top of the glass doors with the other two located on either side of the drawers.
Gabriella Polony Mountain's work includes four major themes. The first three themes are clearly recognizable as the Cosmos, Nature, and Figural works with the fourth theme encompassing history, philosophy, and culture. In her life as an artist, Polony Mountain worked with many different medium including mosaics, weavings, sculpture, stained glass, and repousse. Repousse, or repoussage, is a metalworking technique in which a malleable metal is shaped by hammering the reverse side of a sheet a metal. On the other side, a low relief design is revealed.