SLAM - Saint Louis Art Museum

 St. Louis, MO

Snack Break in the café

SLAM

Today we drove to Forest Park to visit the Saint Louis Art Museum.  The museum is free for everyone but there were two ticketed installations.  

Donna said they couldn't change their minds about it being free because "Free" was engraved on the front of the building in stone.

Placebo - Roxy Paine  We have seen his work around quite a few museums now.

We were able to use our NARM pass to get tickets to both of the installations.  We made our way to the Monet / Mitchell: Painting the French Landscape installation first.  From the website, "Monet/Mitchell: Painting the French Landscape is the first exhibition in the United States to examine the complex dialogue between the work of the French Impressionist Claude Monet and the American Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell."  It was really great seeing so many of Monet's work mixed in with work from Mitchell whom I wasn't familiar with before this show.

Water Lilies - Claude Monet

Weeping Willow - Claude Monet

Red Tree - Joan Mitchell

Water Lilies with Weeping Willow Branches - Claude Monet

Another - Joan Mitchell

Water Lilies - Claude Monet

The Japanese Bridge - Claude Monet

After the Monet installation we had to kill a bit of time before our next ticketed installation so we looked at some art.

Watts 1963 - Kerry James Marshall

Mandolin and Vase of Flowers - Pablo Picasso

Seated Woman  - Pablo Picasso

Memory of the Child Woman - Salvador Dali

The 2nd ticketed event we went to was Age of Armor.  We wouldn't have normally paid for this but since it was free we were down.  It was what you would expect with a surprise that they spoil on the website.

Grotesque Mask

This was the surprise.  Modern Day Armor except I wanted to remind them that Star Wars was A Long Long Time Ago so not modern day.

We got through the armor pretty quickly.  It was more crowded than I would have expected and it just wasn't our cup of mead.  

The rest of the museum was fantastic.  Their Contemporary Art didn't have any heavy hitting pieces (I really like seeing the big names) but there was some good stuff.  But before we soaked up more art we went to the cafe in the basement.  Later we figured out there was a nice restaurant on the 2nd floor but this was after we split a sandwich in the hallway in the basement.

Clerestory Window from the Madison State Bank, Madison, MN - George Grant Elmslie

Ventilator Grille from the Francis Apartments, Chicago, IL - Attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright (before Wright started his own practice)

Stone Sea - Andy Goldsworthy  We love seeing Goldsworthy work.  There was a lot of it in San Francisco and we see it on our travels.  This was tucked away between buildings and you could only catch glimpses of it through 3 windows.  I have a photo from outside later on that really shows how cool this is.

There is a room in the museum dedicated to Max Beckmann.  Max Beckmann was a German artist who left Germany and went into exile in Amsterdam during Hitler's rise and then moved to the US and taught art at the Washington University right here in St. Louis at the end of his life. 

Self-Portrait 1950 - Max Beckmann

Carnival Mask, Green, Violet, and Pink - Max Beckmann

Fisherwomen - Max Beckmann

Le Havre, Grand Quai - Max Beckmann

Winter Landscape (1911) - Wassily Kandinsky

Despair - Auguste Rodin  

Tavern - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Me and Tavern

The Colossal Pair, Thebes - Frank Dillon

Here, Donna stands between two paintings.  On the left Charles I (1633)- Daniel Mytens I.  On the right Charles I (2018)- Kehinde Wiley.  The model is St. Louisan Ashley Cooper.  She is posing like the painting on the left.  Artist Kehind uses long-standing portraiture practices to address absences and erasures of Black individuals in European and American art history.  We have seen his work in several museums.  They are really cool to look at close up as well as next to the pieces he is referencing.

Boxcars, Minneapolis #2 - Ralston Crawford

Cradling Wheat -  Thomas Hart Benton

Politics, Farming, and Law in Missouri-  Thomas Hart Benton

Coal Elevators - Ralston Crawford

Teapot and Stand, Sugar Urn, and Cream Pitcher - Paul Revere II  Yes that Paul Revere!  Ever since I saw Paul Revere Silver in Boston I always look for it and I found some today!

View of St. Louis - Joe Jones

Modern Madonna - John Storrs

Here is that other shot of Goldsworthy I promised you.  The stones are dry fit so the Key Stones on the top hold everything together.  

Everyone has one!  A Dale Chihuly!  

That was it for today.  It was a great museum visit.  Going to museums is one of my favorite things to do on our travels and I am looking forward to a handful of other museums here in St. Louis.  If you missed the last post you can find it here. We rode transit and went to a brewery.