Recognized as one of the finest art museums in the United States, the Spencer Museum has a collection of 18,000 works of art from around the world. The Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art is the art museum of the University of Kansas, Lawrence. The building also houses the Kress Foundation Department of Art History and the Murphy Library of Art and Architecture.
All facilities are fully accessible to the handicapped.
Her eclectic collection included paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, furniture, rugs, textiles, metalwork, ceramics, glass, and other examples of decorative arts, primarily from Europe and Asia. Eventually the University of Kansas Museum of Art was established in 1928, based on this collection. Over the years the collection has grown substantially thanks to the generosity of many benefactors and the expertise of many curators. By the late 1960s the Museum had outgrown its quarters in Spooner Hall. The building housing the Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, the Kress Foundation Department of Art History, and the Murphy Library of Art and Architecture opened in 1978.