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Prairie Village Home Houses Huge Art Collection

If you're ever invited to the Prairie Village home of Linda and John "Topper" Johntz, be prepared for your jaw to drop.

Apparently, that's the most common reaction people have when they visit the home that contains  nearly a thousand works by more than one hundred world-famous and Kansas City-area artists.

The collection? Paintings including works of Piccasso, Miro, Degas, Goya, Cezanne....twenty-one Tiffany Studio lamps, sculptures by Calder, Oldenburg, and Moore....and a collection of pre-1500s books, printed before the modern printing press.

Friday on Up to Date, Steve Kraske welcomes "Topper" Johntz, a former divorce attorney, to share his collection, and tell us about some of his encounters with the famous and infamous, ordinary and extraordinary, and explain his collecting habit.

Read more about the Johntz's collection in Eric Adler's Kansas City Star story.

Stephen Steigman is director of Classical KC. You can email him at <a href="mailto:Stephen.Steigman@classicalkc.org">Stephen.Steigman@classicalkc.org</a>.
When I host Up To Date each morning at 9, my aim is to engage the community in conversations about the Kansas City area’s challenges, hopes and opportunities. I try to ask the questions that listeners want answered about the day’s most pressing issues and provide a place for residents to engage directly with newsmakers. Reach me at steve@kcur.org or on Twitter @stevekraske.