St. Louis School of Fine Arts

Last updated
1879 Peabody and Stearns building, home of the art school 1879-05 (razed 1919) St. Louis School of Fine Arts.jpg
1879 Peabody and Stearns building, home of the art school 187905 (razed 1919)
former British Pavilion building, home of the art school 1905-25 (razed 1925) British Pavilion (Reproduction of Orangery) at the 1904 World's Fair.jpg
former British Pavilion building, home of the art school 190525 (razed 1925)

The St. Louis School of Fine Arts was founded as the Saint Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts in 1879 as part of Washington University in St. Louis, and has continuously offered visual arts and sculpture education since then. Its purpose-built building stood in downtown St. Louis on Lucas Place.

Contents

After about 25 years of operation, in 1909, a legal conflict over funding split the organization into two parts: the school and its art collection, which remained part of privately held Washington University, and a public civic art museum, which became the Saint Louis Art Museum.

The art school moved to the university campus. With changes of name and location on campus, it continued operations up until 2006 when the school was incorporated into the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, which spans graduate and undergraduate arts curriculum, graduate and undergraduate schools of architecture, and the university's art collection in its Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Foundation

As of 1878, painter and art professor Halsey Ives had managed an art program with an affiliation with Washington University for four years, providing both academic and vocational art training, with night classes held at no charge, and with ladies promised "the same advantages as other students". [1] That effort was formalized on May 22, 1879, the date of the formal establishment of the St. Louis School of Fine Art as a department of the university. [2] [3]

Its main financial benefactor was Wayman Crow, who commissioned a school and museum building from Boston architects Peabody and Stearns as a memorial to his deceased son Wayman Crow Jr. It stood at 19th and Lucas Place (now Locust Street).

After the closing of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the museum and school moved into the Palace of Fine Arts in Forest Park, designed by Cass Gilbert. The school would not remain there very long.

Organizational split

In 1907 Ives introduced a funding bill into the General Assembly for an art tax to support the museum and school. Voters approved enthusiastically. But the city controller refused to disburse tax money to a private university, and the Missouri Supreme Court agreed, forcing the institution to split into three organizations:

In 1905 Ives was replaced as director by alumnus and instructor Edmund H. Wuerpel.

On the Danforth Campus

As of September 1909 Wuerpel advertised classes at Skinker and Lindell. [7] At that corner, the art school would be temporarily housed in another remnant of the 1904 fair for more than 20 years: the former British Pavilion building, built as a replica of the Orangery at Kensington Palace. (The former school and museum downtown was also the original home of The Ethical Society of St. Louis. After the school departed in 1909, it was still used for artists' studios, and its 700-seat auditorium was used for civic functions such as public receptions for Mark Twain, After a fire in 1919 it was demolished. The Weber Implement and Automobile Company Building was built on its site. [8] )

In 1926 the art school was given its own new building on campus, Bixby Hall, which incorporated paneling and windows from the British Pavilion in its main hall. [9] [10] It was named for benefactor William K. Bixby.

Wuerpel remained director for 30 years, until his retirement in 1939. [11] The name "St. Louis School of Fine Arts" was formally retained until at least 1945, [12] with other varying names used afterward.

German-American art historian and author of the standard textbook, History of Art, H. W. Janson, taught at the school from 1941 [13] to 1948. Among its instructors were Philip Guston (1946), the German painter Max Beckmann (1946-1948), the Bauhaus visual artist Werner Drewes (1946-1965), painter Edward Boccia (1951-1986), and painter Siegfried Reinhardt (1955-1970).

George Julian Zolnay headed its sculpture department from 1903 to 1909; Carl C. Mose was the head of the sculpture department from 1936 to 1947. [14]

Kenneth E. Hudson was Dean of the School of Art from 1939 to 1969, and during his tenure, the first Bachelor of Fine Arts degree was offered in 1941. [15] Joe Deal was the dean of the School of Art from 1989 to 1999.

In 2006 the school was incorporated into the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Beckmann</span> German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920s, he was associated with the New Objectivity, an outgrowth of Expressionism that opposed its introverted emotionalism. Even when dealing with light subject matter like circus performers, Beckmann often had an undercurrent of moodiness or unease in his works. By the 1930s, his work became more explicit in its horrifying imagery and distorted forms with combination of brutal realism and social criticism, coinciding with the rise of nazism in Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Louis Art Museum</span> Art museum in Saint Louis, Missouri

The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri, where it is visited by up to a half million people every year. Admission is free through a subsidy from the cultural tax district for St. Louis City and County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston</span> Art museum in Boston, Massachusetts

The Museum of Fine Arts is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas. With more than 1.2 million visitors a year, it is the 79th-most-visited art museum in the world as of 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Guston</span> Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman

Philip Guston was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. "Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplished abstraction," and is now regarded as one of the "most important, powerful, and influential American painters of the last 100 years." He frequently depicted racism, antisemitism, fascism and American identity, as well as, especially in his later most cartoonish and mocking work, the banality of evil. In 2013, Guston's painting To Fellini set an auction record at Christie's when it sold for $25.8 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralston Crawford</span> American abstract painter, lithographer, and photographer

Ralston Crawford (1906–1978) was an American abstract painter, lithographer, and photographer.

Karl Zerbe was a German-born American painter and educator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum</span> Art museum in St. Louis, Missouri

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum is an art museum located on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, within the university's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Founded in 1881 as the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, it was initially located in downtown St. Louis. It is the oldest art museum west of the Mississippi River. The Museum holds 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century European and American paintings, sculptures, prints, installations, and photographs. The collection also includes some Egyptian and Greek antiquities and Old Master prints.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Halsey Ives</span>

Halsey Cooley Ives was the founding director of the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts. The institution later became two distinct bodies; the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Washington University School of Art which includes the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Ives was also a landscape painter, but is best remembered for the organization, administration, and popularization of art in Saint Louis, Missouri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington County Museum of Fine Arts</span> Art center, Art museum in MD , United States

Washington County Museum of Fine Arts (WCMFA) is an art museum located in Hagerstown, Maryland, United States. The building is located off Park Circle and serves as a centerpiece in Hagerstown City Park. The museum was donated in 1929, by Mr. and Mrs. William Singer, Jr. It was completed in 1931, and two wings were added in 1949. The museum provides residents and visitors with access to a nationally recognized permanent collection and a rotating schedule of exhibitions, musical concerts, lectures, films, art classes and special events for children and adults throughout the year. The collections include 19th & early 20th Century American Art, Old Masters, and Decorative art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irving Kriesberg</span> American painter, sculptor, educator, author, and filmmaker

Irving Kriesberg was an American painter, sculptor, educator, author, and filmmaker, whose work combined elements of Abstract Expressionism with representational human, animal, and humanoid forms. Because Kriesberg blended formalist elements with figurative forms he is often considered to be a Figurative Expressionist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts</span> Art school of Washington University in St. Louis

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts is a part of Washington University in St. Louis. The Sam Fox School was founded in 2006 by uniting the academic units of Architecture and Art with the university's Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. It is dedicated in honor of donor, former United States Ambassador to Belgium, and owner of Harbour Group Industries, Sam Fox. The school comprises

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard E. Miller</span> American painter (1875–1943)

Richard E. Miller was an American Impressionist painter and a member of the Giverny Colony of American Impressionists. Miller was primarily a figurative painter, known for his paintings of women posing languidly in interiors or outdoor settings. Miller grew up in St. Louis, studied in Paris, and then settled in Giverny. Upon his return to America, he settled briefly in Pasadena, California and then in the art colony of Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he remained for the rest of his life. Miller was a member of the National Academy of Design in New York and an award-winning painter in his era, honored in both France and Italy, and a winner of France's Legion of Honor. Over the past several decades, he has been the subject of a retrospective exhibition and his work has been reproduced extensively in exhibition catalogs and featured in a number of books on American Impressionism.

Edmund Henry Wuerpel, was an American painter, longtime educator, and second director of the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, part of Washington University in St. Louis. In his years of training in Paris, Wuerpel became a friend of painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler who helped spread the influence of the "Tonal School" in the Midwest. In a parallel career Wuerpel also played an important role in the development of orthodontics, collaborating with the "first great teacher of orthodontia" Edward Angle and lecturing in the Midwest and western United States on aesthetics and orthodontics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas P. Barnett</span> American artist

Thomas P. Barnett, also known professionally as Tom Barnett and Tom P. Barnett, was an American architect and painter from St. Louis, Missouri. Barnett was nationally recognized for both his work in architecture and in painting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Nuderscher</span> American painter

Frank Bernard Nuderscher was an American illustrator, muralist, and painter of the American Impressionism style. He was called the "dean of St. Louis artists" for his leadership in the Missouri art community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Greene (artist)</span> American painter

Stephen Greene was an American artist known for his abstract paintings and in the 1940s his social realist figure paintings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Boccia</span> American painter and poet

Edward Eugene Boccia (1921–2012) was an Italian American painter and poet who lived and worked in St. Louis, Missouri and served as a university professor in the School of Fine Arts, Washington University in St. Louis. Boccia's work consisted mostly of large scale paintings in Neo-Expressionist style, and reflect an interest in religion and its role in the modern world. His primary format was multi-panel paintings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musa McKim</span> American painter and poet

Musa Jane McKim Guston, was a painter and poet. Born in Oil City, Pennsylvania, McKim spent much of her youth in Panama. During the Great Depression, she worked under the Section of Fine Arts, painting murals in public buildings, including a Post Office building in Waverly, New York. She was the wife of New York School artist Philip Guston, whom she met while attending the Otis Art Institute. In cooperation with him, she painted a mural in a United States Forest Service building in Laconia, New Hampshire, and panels which were placed aboard United States Maritime Commission ships. After her painting career, she wrote poetry, publishing her work in small literary magazines. Along with her husband and daughter, she lived in Iowa City, Iowa and New York City, eventually settling in Woodstock, New York. Her younger sister was Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim (1910-1992).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Conway (artist)</span> American artist

Frederick Conway (1900–1973) was an American painter and muralist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William K. Bixby</span>

William K. Bixby was a collector of art and rare books, and is known for his significant philanthropic contributions around the St. Louis area.

References

  1. Joseph A., Dacus (1 January 1878). A Tour of St. Louis, or the Inside Life of a Great City. Western publishing company. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  2. Launius, John (17 February 2020). The Life and Times of Missouri's Charles Parsons: Between Art and War. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN   9781439669075 . Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  3. "MUSEUM FOUNDATION". St Louis Art Museum. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  4. Saint Louis Art Museum Page 9-10
  5. Saint Louis Art Museum Handbook of the Collection (2004), p. 10
  6. "About the collection | Kemper Art Museum". kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu. Retrieved 2015-12-11.
  7. "St. Louis School of Fine Arts". St. Louis Globe Democrat. 20 September 1909. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  8. "Weber Implement and Automobile Company Building" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
  9. "Washington University Magazine, Fall 1978" (PDF). Retrieved 23 June 2021.
  10. "Washington University Magazine, Winter 1983" (PDF). Retrieved 23 June 2021.
  11. "Edmund H. Wuerpel Dies in East at 91". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 25 February 1958. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  12. according to an acceptance letter sent to Philip Guston; "Philip Guston and St. Louis". Todd Hignite Comic Art. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
  13. "Washington U. Names Assistant in Art". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 8 August 1941. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
  14. "Carl Mose Dies at 70; Sculptor; Art Teacher". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 26 March 1973. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  15. "Kenneth Hudson". Ask Art. Retrieved 2 July 2021.

38°38′49″N90°18′10″W / 38.64697°N 90.30267°W / 38.64697; -90.30267