While most Washington University students have been to, or know of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, they may not know the local roots of the museum.
Now part of the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, the museum’s history dates back to 1881, when the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts at the University was first established in downtown St. Louis, the original location of the University’s art program.
According to Kemper’s marketing manager Kimberly Singer, since its establishment the museum has followed a strong tradition of collecting and exhibiting significant works of contemporary art.
The museum boasts an impressive collection of 19^th, 20^th and 21^st century European and American artwork, including prints, photographs, paintings and sculptures, as well as a few relics of Egyptian and Greek origin.
This fall, Kemper is attempting to enhance its reputation by presenting “Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury,” a national traveling exhibit that reaches back to the roots of the California “cool” of the 1950s period.
“[The exhibit] brings together a lot of the things that make up the California ‘cool’ aesthetics,” Singer said. “We are showing a lot of films, photography, furniture and other design pieces.”
Along with those, “Birth of the Cool” will also be exhibiting a gallery of more hard-edged abstraction paintings, sculpture, a timeline gallery including film and movie clips from the 1959 California culture as well as a jazz lounge featuring music from and inspired by the era.
The exhibit originates from the Orange County Museum of Arts in California. The exhibit’s title is taken from the famous 1957 Miles Davis album of the same name.
“It started in the west coast and has been in the east coast as well,” Singer said.
“Birth of the Cool,” which has been exhibited at the Kemper Art Museum since Sept. 19, will remain at the museum until Jan. 5. Afterwards, the exhibit will be sent to the University of Texas.
In addition to “Birth of the Cool, Kemper is thriving in its new building next to the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, opened in Oct. 2006.
In the past, the museum and its arts have been well received by University students, according to Singer. Although it is not uncommon for colleges to own an art museum on campus, the Kemper Art Museum stands on its own as one of the city’s art establishments and the oldest museum west of the Mississippi River.
“The Kemper tends to be a really prominent art museum, more so than those of many other institutions,” Singer said. “We have a nice set-up. The museum has a pretty amazing collection, one of the best university collections in the country.”
In spring 2007, Kemper presented “Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany,” another successful exhibit focusing on German art after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“It was very contemporary. [The artists] tried to tie together the kind of art that was being made in the Germany at that time,” Singer said.
Since moving into its new building in 2006, the Kemper Art Museum has been incorporated into the Sam Fox School.
“We’re really a part of that school, so we work closely with the arts department and the Writing I program as well,” Singer said. “We are hoping that students will get something out of it no matter what major they’re studying or what kinds of inte