Richard Berkley spent considerable time on both sides of the camera lens – as the longest-serving mayor in Kansas City’s history and as a prolific amateur photographer who never met a U.S. president, sports star, movie personality, or average Joe he couldn’t capture in color or black and white.
This new exhibit in the Central Library’s refurbished Genevieve Guldner Gallery features dozens of shots from a personal collection that Berkley estimates at some 150,000 photos. Many were snapped by him. Others capture the now-83-year-old Berkley with the likes of Richard Nixon, Colin Powell, Sammy Davis Jr., and both Walter Cronkite and burlesque star Tempest Storm (yes, together).