In the final year of his tenure, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art director/CEO Marc Wilson is making sure that, going forward, the museum’s world-renowned Chinese art collection will get the star treatment it deserves.

Last month, the museum announced it had hired respected Asian art scholar Colin C. Mackenzie as its senior curator of early Chinese art (see sidebar).

And there are long-range plans for a total reinstallation of the galleries and a new curator of Chinese painting. In the meantime, visitors will see modest updates of some galleries by next spring.

Other collections, including American and European art, have been reinstalled as part of the museum’s recent renovation and expansion project, and the Chinese galleries are long overdue for a major overhaul.

Wilson said the basic concept of the Chinese galleries hasn’t changed much since they were installed in the 1940s by Laurence Sickman and Paul Gardner, the director at that time.

Wilson, who joined the museum in 1971 as associate curator of Chinese art, has continued to be actively involved with the collection during his years as director, a job he accepted in 1982. Five years ago, he presided over a dramatic reinstallation of the early Chinese Buddhist sculpture collection.

He conceived it as a temporary fix, knowing that the reinstallation would change when there was time to back off and really look at what needed to be done with all of the museum’s Chinese holdings.

That happened earlier this year, when Wilson convened a four-and-a-half day charrette to assess the museum’s Chinese installation and its goals.

Mackenzie was one of several outside art experts who attended the sessions, along with a broad range of museum staff, including guards and custodial people as well as curators and designers.

The mammoth session yielded a detailed master plan for a comprehensive reinstallation of the Chinese galleries. It will be Mackenzie’s job to refine and implement it, as well as raise funds to pay for it.

“It’s a 15-year plan,” Wilson said, “but could be realized sooner if money can be raised.”

In the interim, Wilson and Mackenzie are going to do a modest reinstallation.

A top priority is getting the Chinese ritual bronzes and early ceramics, many of which were put in storage during the recent renovations of the Nelson-Atkins building, back on view.

“That’s going to be a blitz within the next nine months,” Wilson said.

Three galleries had been closed during construction and will be reopened with the bronzes and some new acquisitions in relined and relit cases.

Works will be grouped to show a progression from the mysterious ritual objects of the Late Neolithic (ca. 6000-2000 B.C.) and Shang Dynasty (ca. 1500-1045 B.C.) periods, to the use of luxury materials and a more realist approach during the second half of the Zhou Dynasty (1045-221 B.C.) and into the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.).

The former Scholar’s Studio will display Han Dynasty works and evoke a sense of the tomb.

The two also plan improvements in the main Chinese gallery, where the floor is being cleaned. A highlight of the new display will be a set of eight Tang Dynasty (618-906) tomb figures with multicolored glazes, not seen for many years

“We’re seeking the effect of a spirit road or spirit avenue, which led up to Chinese tombs,” Mackenzie said.

The adjacent Chinese Temple, with the sculpture of Guanyin and the dragon on the ceiling, will be relit.