Art School

By David Hill

Omaha, Neb.

Omaha is famous for three things: the Union Pacific Railroad, Mutual of Omaha Insurance Co., and the financier Warren Buffett. It is not considered a hotbed of culture. Yet this city of about 350,000 on the Missouri River in eastern Nebraska is also home to the Joslyn Art Museum, an Art Deco gem that contains an encyclopedic collection of paintings, prints, and sculptures. Works by some of the world's most celebrated artists--including Titian, Degas, El Greco, Winslow Homer, Monet, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Mary Cassatt, and Grant Wood--adorn the museum's stately galleries.

About 150 teachers from across the Cornhusker State take over the Joslyn every year and plot a revolution for their schools. They come for a weeklong professional-development institute called Prairie Visions,...