Silver Missouri, 2013
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MI
Recycled Silver
180” x 45” x 3/8"

Photography: Courtesy, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Maya Lin’s silver sculpture of the Missouri River captures its bends and arcs, narrows and widths. The subject of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery Expedition (1804–1806), the Missouri flows from western Montana, through Kansas City and joins the Mississippi River in St. Louis. From there, they flow as one to the Gulf of Mexico, forming the fourth longest river system in the world. Rivers are the arteries and veins of our earth, carrying water from snow-capped mountains to fertile plains and from flood-stricken lands to the sea.