Dedicated to Art ... Free to All

Only one building remains in Forest Park from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, better known as the 1904 St. Louis Worlds Fair. The former Palace of Fine Arts, now the St. Louis Art Museum’s main building, overlooks vestiges of the fair’s Grand Basin from atop Art Hill. The fair’s organizers had intended from the beginning for architect Cass Gilbert’s Palace of Fine Arts to remain as their gift to the city. It was the only building constructed of steel and stone instead of the temporary material used in the fair’s other buildings, a mixture of plaster-of-paris and hemp on a wood framework.

Saint Louis Art Museum began in 1879 as the Saint Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, associated with Washington University, then located in the western part of downtown St. Louis. When the museum moved into the Palace of Fine Arts after the fair, the citizens of St. Louis voted for an art tax to fund the museum and its collections. That was the beginning of the city’s longstanding tradition of support for the arts, embodied in the motto on the entablature of the museum’s north entrance: “Dedicated to Art and Free to All.”

The museum endeavors to be comprehensive, including objects from across all cultures and time periods. It is renowned for Oceanic and pre-Columbian art, ancient Chinese bronzes, and for its European and American collections of modern art, particularly German expressionism. Saint Louis Art Museum’s permanent collection comprises more than 30,000 works. Special exhibitions range from small single room showings of selected museum holdings, to world-class featured exhibitions.

The Art Museum made additions to the original Cass Gilbert building in the 1950’s, in 1971, and most recently in 2013, when the East Building, designed by Sir David Chipperfield, opened. At 200,000 square feet, the new addition increases the museum’s available public space 30 percent, and allows the display of many larger format contemporary works. 

One must-see work is Andy Goldsworthy’s sculpture Stone Sea, a series of interlocking dry laid stone arches.  The piece was designed site-specific for a courtyard between the old and new buildings. Be sure to view it from the ground level inside the building, as well as above from the exterior.  Stone Sea is a recent example, like many others in the St. Louis Art Museum, of the integration of art with architecture that Cass Gilbert sought: “I have always felt that architecture, painting and sculpture were so closely akin that the highest form of art would be the combination of them all."

Getting there from CONSTRUCT 2015:

Driving: 15 minutes. Highway I-64/US40 west to Hampton Exit at Forest Park, and follow the signs to the Art Museum. Limited parking available on surface lots; pay parking available under the museum.

MetroLink: From Convention Center Station 14 min. to Forest Park Station, transfer to #90 Hampton bus (#03 Forest Park Shuttle also available in season, check schedule.) Or skip the bus and take a 15-20 minute walk from station to musuem (moderate hill from the lagoon to the museum).

Taxi: Budget $15 each way.