City: Kansas City, MO

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (816) 931-5722

Address: 3616 Belleview

Description: If you’re a fan of this famous Kansas City artist, this tour is a must. If you’re not familiar with his work, there’s ample opportunity to discover it in the Benton section of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and a mural that fills a wall at the Truman Library. His painting style was bigger than life, a colorful montage of voluptuous women, powerful men, and landscapes that seemed to rise and swirl as if in a tornado. The Benton home remains exactly as it was when the artist went outside to sign a painting and dropped dead in 1975. His brushes and paints, pipe, and harmonica are casually placed as if waiting for his big rough hands to take them up. His wife, Rita, died a few months later, but her famous spaghetti sauce lives on. Make sure to pick up a copy of her recipe in the kitchen. The tour is open seven days a week; admission is $4 for adults, $2.50 ages 6 to 12. If you have time, stroll around the lovely Belleview homes district; minimansions line the streets, and the landscaping is exquisite, particularly in spring when the pink and white azaleas are in bloom.