This Wichita museum now offers fee-free admission to all permanent exhibits
It won’t cost you anything to look at the permanent exhibits at the Wichita Art Museum, as of Dec. 22.
The past fee of $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and $3 for students has been ended. Previously, free admission was only offered Saturdays.
Wichita Art Museum Director and CEO Anne Kraybill said the idea of free admission came after learning about the facility’s history and its founder, Louise Caldwell Murdock.
“She basically left her estate to acquire a collection of art as a gift to the city of Wichita,” Kraybill said. “That was really the impetus that if this is truly, you know, in the public trust that it really should be available to the public, you know, on their own terms, any day of the week that we’re open.”
According to the Wichita Art Museum’s website, the museum has more than 10,000 pieces of art, including John Steuart Curry’s Kansas Cornfield.
Kraybill said the museum is constantly aiming to diversify the works of art to feature different walks of lives.
The newest exhibition, called “Love for All My Life,” opened last week. It is a collection of works featuring images of family from the museum’s permanent collection, which includes a new acquisition by Robert Peterson.
The only exhibitions that require tickets will be the temporary exhibits.
“Those are exhibitions that we essentially pay to bring here,” Kraybill said. “So they’re sort of like a rental, but those will also be free for members.”
The upcoming temporary exhibitions are “Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioning Art and Paper,” “Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass” and “Portraits of Hope featuring William H. Johnson and Barbara Earl Thomas.”
Kraybill has been in the position since Aug. 15. She said once the discussions began about providing free admission, the process moved pretty fast.
“I really think that museums should function as libraries,” Kraybill said. “So they should be available to ... the entire citizenry and they not only serve as tools to reflect your own humanity, but they serve as portals of the lived experiences of other people.”
Kraybill said her hope is to bring art to a wider group of people.
“It also just, you know, can shape individuals’ lives, who maybe otherwise wouldn’t come to the museum and introduce them to a whole new, you know, world of art,” she said.
The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. It is located at 1400 Museum Blvd.
