campaign donors - Saint Louis Art Museum

the campaign for the saint louis art museum
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Embracing the importance of emotion and subjective feeling, the Romantics
flourished in the early part of the 19th-century as a daring reaction against
the belief in rational thought that had dominated Western culture since the
Renaissance. Gallery 205 captures this major artistic movement’s fascination
with the Orient, particularly the exotic cultures of North Africa and the Near
East, and highlights Romanticism’s international range with richly colorful
works from England, France, and Germany.
The Realist movement emerged in mid-19th-century France as artists
moved away from works focused on ancient history and biblical and
mythological scenes. The reinstallation in Gallery 206 provides an
opportunity to explore these artists’ efforts to affirm the importance of
observation of contemporary reality.
German artist Max Beckmann’s work is complex and multifaceted, straddling
a wide range of genres and spanning a tumultuous historical period that
included two World Wars. Given a new place of prominence in Grigg Gallery
(G216), the reinstallation of Beckmann’s works showcases the breadth of the
Museum’s unparalleled collection of his paintings. The largest of its kind,
the Museum’s holdings cover all periods of Beckmann’s career and is based
the campaign for the saint louis art museum
largely on the 1983 bequest of Morton May, chairman of May Department
Stores, who built the largest collection of Beckmann’s paintings in the world.
The Museum’s collection of Impressionist art has been installed thematically.
Impressionist Portraiture (G217) presents a range of works from Renoir,
Degas, Manet, and Fantin-Latour. Many portraits created by these artists
were noncommissioned, private works, and thus are distinguished by an
informality and intimacy. The Impressionists are especially well-known for
their works of rich light and color, and the Impressionist Landscape gallery
(G218) includes paintings by Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, van Gogh, and Gauguin
that demonstrate the artists’ innovative depiction of the modern era, which
transformed society with industrialization and the arrival of the railroad in
the mid-19th-century.
In the Museum’s more than 100-year history, generous donors have given
stunning art collections as well as endowment funds established specifically
for art acquisition. As a result, the Museum’s collection places it among the
very best institutions of its kind. We look to the continued leadership and
generosity of the next generation of collectors and donors as we envision
the Museum’s exciting future together.
The Level 2 galleries to the east of Sculpture Hall now
feature European Art from 1700 to 1945. Galleries 202,
203, and 204 feature 18th-century European art, and
Grigg Gallery now showcases artwork by Max Beckmann.