Saint Louis Art Museum in Missouri, USA

The Saint Louis Art Museum is an art museum in Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri. Its collection contains more than 37,000 objects representing roughly 5,000 years of artistic production and cultural history. The museum combines galleries in Cass Gilbert’s building created for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition with the East Building designed by David Chipperfield.

Collection and Galleries

The museum’s holdings cover art from many regions and periods rather than concentrating on a single school or medium. Collection areas include Ancient and Egyptian art, African art, Oceanic art, art of the Americas, Asian art, decorative arts and design, European art, and modern and contemporary art, alongside works on paper and other specialized holdings.

More than 16,000 collection objects can also be searched through the museum’s online database. The digital records include information such as artist or maker, date, materials, dimensions, provenance, credit line, and, when applicable, the gallery where an object is displayed. The museum continues to add and revise these records as research progresses.

Among the best-known works in the collection is Henri Matisse’s Bathers with a Turtle, painted in 1907–08. The museum received the painting in 1964 as a gift from Joseph Pulitzer Jr. and Louise Vauclain Pulitzer. Its documented history includes confiscation from the Folkwang Museum in Essen by the German Nazi government in 1937 before the work was purchased for the Pulitzers at a Lucerne auction in 1939.

The collection also contains Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, a bronze cast made around 1920 from the sculpture Degas developed around 1880. The figure depicts Marie van Goethem and incorporates gauze and satin with the bronze. Another familiar work is Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, dating from about 1915–26.

The Museum’s 1904 Building

The institution traces its origins to the Saint Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1879. Its present Main Building was designed by American architect Cass Gilbert for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the 1904 World’s Fair held in St. Louis.

During the exposition, Gilbert’s permanent structure formed the center of the Palace of Fine Arts and was accompanied by large temporary wings. The palace displayed about 11,000 works from 26 countries during the fair. The permanent building was constructed of limestone and brick and survived after the temporary fair structures were removed. It is the sole surviving building from the 1904 World’s Fair.

Sculpture Hall remains one of the defining interior spaces of Gilbert’s design. Its barrel-vaulted ceiling rises to about 78 feet, and its architectural treatment drew inspiration from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. Exterior sculpture and architectural ornament were also incorporated into the building as part of the original fine-arts program.

The East Building

The museum expanded with the opening of the East Building on June 29, 2013. Designed by British architect David Chipperfield, the addition created new gallery space while connecting directly with the older museum. The project also incorporated an underground parking facility and service areas used for moving artworks and supporting museum operations.

The 1904 and 2013 sections therefore present two distinct architectural periods within one museum campus. Gilbert’s Beaux-Arts building remains the historical center, while Chipperfield’s addition provides galleries designed for later collection displays and exhibitions.

Admission and Opening Hours

General admission to the Saint Louis Art Museum is free every day. Some main exhibitions require a separate ticket on regular admission days, while admission to main ticketed exhibitions is free on Friday.

The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm and remains open until 9 pm on Friday. It is closed on Monday. The museum is also closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas and closes at 3 pm on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Entry to ticketed exhibitions ends one hour before the museum closes.

Parking and Accessibility

Free public parking is available in two lots on the north side of Fine Arts Drive, across from the museum. The museum also operates a 300-space underground parking garage. Current garage rates are $15 during peak months from March through October and $10 during off-peak months; museum members pay $5.

Accessible parking spaces are available in the public lots and the parking garage. Accessible entrances are located at the East Building and inside the garage, and an accessible passenger drop-off area is directly in front of the East Building. Elevators serve all museum levels.

The museum stands on Fine Arts Drive within Forest Park, overlooking Art Hill and the Grand Basin. The Grace Taylor Broughton Sculpture Garden, part of the museum campus, is open daily from 6 am to 10 pm.