I lived in Wichita for five years. No one would ever call it an exciting town, but it is a pleasant place with a good quality of life. With 300,000 people, it doesn't have all of the problems that you associate with big cities, yet there is still enough going on to keep one entertained. For a small city (somewhere around the 50th largest city in America), Wichita has a lot to offer for those interested in the arts: The Wichita Symphony, Music Theatre of Wichita, Wichita Ballet Theatre, as well as three(!) darn good art museums.

Personages d'Oiseaux by Joan Miró, at Wichita State University (info below)

The Wichita Art Museum is the largest art center in town. Its collection contains a handful of masterpieces by the likes of Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer, and Helen Frankenthaler, as well as a lot of lesser-known works by well-know artists. They also have a lot of works by regional artists like the Prairie Printmakers, and a gallery of western artists Charles M. Russell and Frederic Remington.

The Wichita Center for the Arts is a smaller art center that hosts exhbitions by regional artists, juried shows, and traveling exhibitions. (I myself participated in a show there once.) They also have an auditorium where they show foreign and art films.

The Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University, though a small museum, is the slickest of the three, and hosts some great exhibitions by contemporary artists. The Ulrich is also home to one of the best-kept secrets in Kansas, a mural by Joan Miro! A lot of people who live in Wichita don't even realize that the city is home to a monumental work of art by a man who could very well be the third most famous artist of the 20th century (behind Picasso and Matisse).

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