A new store at the Kansas City Art Institute means artwork by alumni, faculty and students can finally be yours

When businessman Howard Vanderslice purchased a grand brick mansion on Warwick Boulevard in 1927 and gifted it to the Kansas City Art Institute, he had a vision. At a dinner the following year, he told students he hoped the art school would inspire them to give “to this city, in the forms of great marble and great canvases, the inspiration it has given them.”

Nearly a century later, that vision has come to life. Marble & Canvas, KCAI’s new on-campus retail store, opened its doors in early April inside Vanderslice Hall. The 900-square-foot space, formerly a cluster of offices and a narrow hallway, has been completely reimagined by Gabe York, the lead design consultant on the project. York, who is based in Kansas City, has a resume that stretches from Banana Republic and Anthropologie on the Plaza to Burberry’s U.S. expansion.

When KCAI president Peggy Shannon brought on York to lead the project, the brief was pretty open-ended. “They said, ‘We want to open a store, and we want to support alumni. And other than that, we don’t know,'” York says.

York took that freedom and ran with it. During early walkthroughs of Vanderslice, he kept returning to one thought: The historic mansion’s mix of refined and raw design reminded him of New Orleans-style architecture. The challenge, he says, was figuring out how to present contemporary artwork within a traditional setting without losing the integrity of either. “There’s this juxtaposition you have to cram into one space, and it has to make sense somehow,” York says. 

The result is a curated, immersive environment where a single wall shares the work of five or six artists and ceramics, textiles and works on paper are layered together in vignettes.

The collection comes entirely from KCAI alumni, students and faculty. York spent months connecting with artists and their work. “I have literally been on the phone with people as they’re crying, telling stories about how much KCAI changed their life,” he says. 

He mentions two artists in particular: Kelly Porter, a 1997 printmaking graduate and founder of the hand-painted wallpaper company Porter Teleo (whose work can be found in Gwen Stefani’s home and restaurants in Japan); and Irma Starr, a ceramicist who studied at KCAI in the early 1960s and whose work now lives in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art among other museums around the country. Both Porter and Starr are contributing work for the shop. “[Starr] just laughs and hugs and speaks so highly of what the Art Institute meant to her,” York says.

Beyond being a retail spot, Marble & Canvas is designed to make art ownership more approachable to those who don’t consider themselves collectors. “We wanted to create a space where people could come and be surrounded by art and not be afraid to touch it,” York says.

Sales from the store will support student scholarships. The school, one of the oldest art colleges in the country, was founded in 1885 and is, as York puts it, “a hidden little city,” which he hopes to change. “It’s no longer going to be Kansas City’s secret,” York says.

GO: 4415 Warwick Blvd. in Vanderslice Hall. Tuesday–Friday, 10 am–5 pm.

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