One Fine Arts Drive
Forest Park
Saint Louis, Missouri
314-721-0072
Located in Forest Park, the Saint Louis Art Museum was founded in 1879 and was originally the Saint Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, an independent entity of Washington University. The Museum was originally located in downtown St. Louis but relocated to Forest Park following the 1904 World's Fair. Famed architect Cass Gilbert designed the Museum's Beaux-Arts style building as the Palace of Fine Arts for the 1904 World's Fair. In 1909 the public Saint Louis Art Museum was formed and detached from the private Washington University.
Through generations of public support and private benefaction, the Museum has assembled one of the finest comprehensive art collections in the country. The Museum has over 100 galleries (photo left) and contains more than 30,000 works of art. The collections include works of exceptional quality from virtually every culture and time period. Highlights include Oceanic art, pre-Columbian art, ancient Chinese bronzes, the Egyptian mummies, and European and American art of the late 19th and 20th centuries, with particular strength in 20th century German painting. The Museum also offers a full range of featured exhibitions, a research library, a varied schedule of special events, and community and educational programming.
CURRENT EXHIBITS
Matisse and the Sea
Through May 12, 2024
Matisse and the Sea is the first exhibition to examine the significance of the sea across Modernist artist Henri Matisse’s career, which included artwork in coastal locations on the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Pacific. Marine imagery was an important catalyst for Matisse’s artistic experimentation - most notably in the Saint Louis Art Museum’s own iconic painting Bathers with a Turtle. This exhibition includes imagery ranging from Matisse’s early panoramic marine views in the South of France to his late paper cutouts, representing life beneath the waves, which were inspired by his visit to Tahiti in 1930. It offers an opportunity to explore the artist’s travel across his career as well as the global influences that informed his art, particularly African sculptures and masks.
Tickets Required / Free on Fridays
Visit the exhibit's webpage
Native American Art of the 20th Century:
The William P. Healey Collection
Through July 14, 2024
Native American Art of the 20th Century: The William P. Healey Collection celebrates a transformative gift of outstanding works by Native American artists active across the 20th century. The promised gift of 100 works establishes a critical junction between the Museum’s deep collection of Indigenous art pre-1920 and a growing emphasis on the contemporary.
Concealed Layers: Uncovering Expressionist Paintings
Through August 4, 2024
A painting’s surface hides a wealth of information that can only be found using advanced methods of conservation science. Concealed Layers: Uncovering Expressionist Paintings presents new discoveries made during an ambitious three-year study of the Museum’s world-class collection of German Expressionist paintings. Complete underpaintings, a lost title, and studio graffiti are just some of the exciting findings that will receive their public debut.
Currents 123: Tamara Johnson
Through September 22, 2024
Dallas-based artist Tamara Johnson is known for her witty, hypernaturalistic sculptures depicting ubiquitous household objects, from colanders, hair clips, and garden hoses to an array of buffet treats, brought together in improbable, incisive assemblages. Her handcrafted objects are shaped from materials as varied as copper and concrete and then are meticulously painted to fool and delight the eye. Their exquisite surfaces—sheathed in silver leaf, coated with enamel, and brushed with diamond dust—both mask and accentuate their construction. The installations of Johnson’s sculpted items—seemingly plucked from a rummage sale, kitchen drawer or backyard—are weighted with a surreal, disquieting intimacy, a result as much of their uncanny juxtaposition and position within a gallery space as their improbable solidity.
Shimmering Silks: Traditional Japanese Textiles, 18th-19th Centuries
Through October 20, 2024
Japanese people have used silk to create items of clothing and decorative works of art for hundreds of years, ever since the cultivation of silkworms was introduced to Japan from China during the third and fourth centuries CE. Shimmering Silks: Traditional Japanese Textiles, 18th-19th Centuries celebrates silk pieces from the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, which has been collecting fine Japanese textiles for more than a century. Some were purchased by the Museum while others were generously given by patrons and donors over decades.
Visiting the Saint Louis Art Museum
Visiting Hours
Tuesday - Sunday: 10 am - 5 pm
Friday: 10 am - 9 pm
Closed Mondays
The Museum's long-standing commitment to free admission makes it possible for everyone to have the opportunity to visit our galleries as often as they like throughout the year. Admission fees to featured exhibitions vary; admission to featured exhibitions is always free on Fridays.
Visit the greatriverroad.com art trail section for more art related attractions and events in the Middle Mississippi River Valley.
Saint Louis Art Museum - Use the official site of the Saint Louis Art Museum for answers to all the questions you may have.
