Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum facts for kids
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| Location | St. Louis, Missouri |
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| Type | Art museum |
| Public transit access |  MetroBus Blue at Skinker station |
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum is a cool art museum found at Washington University in St. Louis. It's part of the university's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. This museum started way back in 1881 as the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts. It was first located in downtown St. Louis. It's actually the oldest art museum west of the Mississippi River!
The museum has amazing art from the 1800s, 1900s, and 2000s. You can see European and American paintings, sculptures, and photographs. They even have some ancient Egyptian and Greek items, plus old prints.
The museum moved to its current building in 2006. This building was designed by Pritzker Prize-winner Fumihiko Maki. In 2018, the museum closed for a big update. It reopened in 2019 with a shiny new front made of stainless steel. It also gained a sculpture garden and much more space to show off its art.
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How the Museum Started
The museum began in 1881 at Washington University in St. Louis. It was first called the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts. Halsey C. Ives was the first director. He focused on collecting art by American artists of that time, like William Merritt Chase.
In 1905, a banker named Charles Parsons gave his art collection to the museum. This collection included works by Frederic Edwin Church. This gift helped the museum become a major place for modern American art.
In 1906, the museum moved to the Palace of Fine Arts in Forest Park. It stayed there until 1909. At that time, the collection was worth a lot of money! Later, the City Museum of Art was created. It started collecting its own art. Many pieces from the university's collection were loaned to the public museum until 1960.
By the end of 1931, the university's art collection was very large and valuable. It included art from the Charles Parsons collection and works by artists like Frederic Remington and Rosa Bonheur. These artworks were either loaned out, displayed on campus, or stored away. The collection was worth about $1,000,000. This made it as important as collections at Harvard or Yale.
New Art and a New Home
In 1941, an art history professor named H.W. Janson joined the university. He helped update the art collection. He wanted to add more modern European art, especially pieces from art styles like Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism.
Janson sold some older, popular paintings to buy new modern art. He sold 120 artworks and bought 40 new ones by European modern artists. These included works by Paul Klee and Juan Gris.
Janson also helped find a permanent home for the museum's collection. He left in 1948. But in 1960, the museum moved to Steinberg Hall on the main university campus. At this time, it was renamed the Washington University Gallery of Art.
The Museum Today
Recently, the museum has continued to collect modern art. They have added works by artists like Jackson Pollock and Robert Rauschenberg. In 2004, the museum was renamed again. It became the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. It is now part of the new Sam Fox School of Visual Art and Design.
Two years later, in 2006, the museum moved into a brand new building. This building is next to the old Steinberg Hall. It was designed by Fumihiko Maki. This large building also holds the university's art and architecture library.
In May 2018, the museum closed for a big construction project. The museum added a new front made of shiny, pleated stainless steel panels. It also got a new entrance and a new exhibition space. The museum's sculpture garden was moved to a new spot.
In September 2019, the newly expanded museum opened with a major art show. It featured work by Ai Weiwei.
Today, the Kemper Art Museum is a key part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. This school brings together art, architecture, and the museum. It helps students learn about art and design in many ways.
What You Can See: Exhibits and Collection
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum has four main areas where art is shown. These include the Barney A. Ebsworth Gallery and the Bernoudy Permanent Collection Gallery. Some past exhibits have included "To See Without Being Seen: Contemporary Art and Drone Warfare" and "Notations: Contemporary Drawing as Idea and Process."
The museum's permanent collection is on its top floor and in the Florence Steinberg Weil Sculpture Garden. It has many important artworks from the 1800s, 1900s, and 2000s.
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Aelbert Cuyp, Cows with a Milkmaid in a Farmyard, 1650
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Thomas Cole, Aqueduct near Rome, 1832
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George Caleb Bingham, Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers Through the Cumberland Gap, 1851–52
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Frederic Edwin Church, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, 1883
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Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, Another Marguerite!, 1892
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Edvard Munch, Portrait of Irmgard Steinbart, 1913
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George Bellows, Portrait of Garaldine Lee, No. 1, 1914
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Theo van Doesburg, Composition VII (The Three Graces), 1917
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Max Beckmann, Les Artistes mit Gemüse (Artists with Vegetable), 1943
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Arshile Gorky, Golden Brown Painting, 1943–44
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The Newman Money Museum
The Newman Money Museum opened on October 25, 2006. It was located on the bottom floor of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. This museum had a display area and a library about numismatics (the study of money).
The collection was given by Eric P. Newman and his wife Evelyn Newman. It had many different coins and paper money. It mostly focused on early American money. The museum also showed items about Benjamin Franklin's role in making early American paper money. Other exhibits looked at Spanish coins, how women and African-Americans were shown on money, and how money is made. The Newman Money Museum closed in 2018 when the Kemper Art Museum expanded.
See also
In Spanish: Museo de Arte Mildred Lane Kemper para niños
