Contemporary art by women and artists of the Black, Asian, and Latino diasporas — gathered under one throughline: Building America.
Painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, and assemblage — by artists whose practices expand the American story.
The collection centers women and artists of the Black, Asian, and Latino diasporas, with Kansas City roots and national reach. It is not a vault. It is the foundation’s working instrument: exhibited in public, loaned to museums, and gifted into permanent collections to build the institutional record — artist by artist, placement by placement.
66 × 36 in. assemblage: MDF, acrylic, pinewood, chain, steel butterflies, bells, garden hooks, windchime. Accession 2025.61.1-28.
Credit line: “Gift of Major Dwight Oran Smith (U.S. Army Retired)”
Aluminum, PLA print, rivets and hardware; 38 × 26 × 12 in. The foundation’s first placement with the Nelson-Atkins.
Additional works are placed with the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art. Follow the collection day to day on Instagram: @the_smith_family_collection.
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Five collection works loaned, curated by chief curator Jessica Hong — including works by Hugo Zelada-Romero, Sumire Skye Taniani, Hùng Lê, and Kiki Serna.
Charlotte Street, Kansas City. A multimedia exhibition drawn from the collection and curated by Kaitlyn B. Jones, featuring fifteen Black artists — the collection’s first museum-scale public exhibition.