January 15, 2012
The current building for the Saint Louis Art Museum was built for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition ("Meet me in St. Louis"). The museum began in 1881.
Missouri
On the left (below) is a photograph of what the building looked like during the exposition. The curved entrance is no longer there (being part of the parking lot) but some allowance had to be made for the cars that would come after 1904.
Louis IX is the namesake for the city. It seems that every museum must have either a Dale Chihuly glass piece hanging in the lobby, or a Roxy Paine stainless steel tree out front.
For the last few years, the museum has been undergoing quite a bit of construction. It appears that the available display space will double (at least). For now, that means that several galleries are closed, and likely many of the paintings are not being shown.
This entry lobby was originally a hall of sculpture. Original photographs show it to be a crowded floor, looking more like a memorial sculpture park than an art museum.
In most cases, the photographs (below) are only excerpts of the much larger work.
It might appear that the types of works (or at least the order shown here) is erratic as we jump from one era to another. But, that's how the galleries are arranged.
Normally, I'd wait for all the people to clear out, but this man looked so perfect for the paintings that I waited for him to walk across the floor before taking the photograph.
Stuart and Peale painted so many images of George Washington that you almost expect any good museum to have one or both.
I helps to have a map to keep track of where you've been and where you have not. There is not a natural walking route.
These unfinished paintings are of the artist's two daughters.
A man fell to his death in the mountains of Scotland, but his loyal dog stayed with him. Walter Scott wrote a poem and from that came this painting by Edwin Landseer.
