KU’s Spencer Museum of Art to be closed another week after sustaining water damage

The Spencer Museum of Art at Kansas University, which had two lower floors damaged by a water main break last week, will be closed for another week, Saralyn Reece Hardy said in a message to museum supporters Monday.

Hardy said the incident did not affect the museum’s galleries and collections but that the museum will still be closed through next Monday.

KU officials have said water from a broken main last Wednesday on Mississippi Street damaged two bottom floors. A majority of the damage was in the museum’s bottom floor, which houses the Murphy Art and Architecture Library, and KU sent between 15,000 and 20,000 books, which is roughly 10 percent of the library’s 170,000 volumes, to Chicago for treatment and repairs.

The museum has been closed since the leak last Wednesday. Hardy said scheduled group tours will proceed as planned.

Updates on the museum’s schedule will also be posted on the museum’s website, www.spencerart.ku.edu.