The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened October 2, 1994. At the core of the permanent collection is the Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection, a gift by the Museum’s donors R. Crosby Kemper and his wife Bebe Kemper, and the Kemper Foundations. The collection includes works by such artists as
Louise Bourgeois, Christian Boltanski, Manuel Neri, Jasper Johns, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Joan Mitchell, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Hung Liu,
Robert Motherwell, Deborah Butterfield, Fairfield Porter, Wayne Thiebaud, Grace Hartigan, William Wegman, Red Grooms, Georgia O’Keeffe,
Christopher Brown, Willem de Kooning, and Robert Mapplethorpe.
Funding for the Museum was provided by R. Crosby Kemper, then Chairman & CEO of UMB Financial Corporation, formerly United Missouri Bancshares, Inc.; the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation; the R. C. Kemper Charitable Trust & Foundation; the R. C. Kemper, Jr. Charitable Trust & Foundation; and the William T. Kemper Foundation, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee. The Kemper Museum was formally incorporated as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit museum with an independent board of trustees on September 13, 1995.
Each year, the Museum presents 10–12 special exhibitions in its galleries. The group and solo artist exhibitions feature established and emerging artists from the United States and around the world. Past special exhibitions have included works by
Alex Katz, Liza Lou, Christian Boltanski, Kojo Griffin, Alison Saar, and Fairfield Porter, among many others. Lectures, film and video series, performances, and workshops are offered on a regular basis in the Museum’s meeting room, which seats 88 people.