Paintings by St. Louis artist Wallace Herndon Smith from private collections, and from the permanent collection of the Bellwether Foundation are featured. Born in St. Louis in 1901, Smith was a traditional painter who absorbed the visual language of artists like Henri Matisse and Edward Hopper. Smith was fluent in many subjects from landscapes to portraits and his is works have been exhibited widely including in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis and many other cities.

Though he is often remembered for his pre-World-War II precisionist paintings of urban and industrial subjects, Ralston Crawford produced a significant body of work after 1949 inspired by the visual and auditory culture of New Orleans. Jazz music played a significant role, and its influence can be seen in his use of tones and textures, and in the rhythm and syncopation of the pictorial "structures" that he built. This exhibition contains over 150 photographs, prints, paintings and films that illuminate a world in which the visual, auditory, emotional and aesthetic are intertwined.

The exhibition is supported by an award from the National Endowment for the arts; an Anonymous Donor; Capes, Sokol, Goodman and Sarachan PC; Nancy and Kenneth Kranzberg; Barbara and Arthur McDonnell in Memory of Guy P. Bour; Mary Strauss; and Anabeth and John Weil.

Lecture: Saturday, October 1, 2011, 11 a.m. Neelon Crawford, son of Ralston Crawford, discusses the work and life of his father, and will screen the film, Ralston Crawford, Painter, which he produced and directed. Sheldon Concert Hall, admission free.

Lecture: Thursday, November 17, 2011, 6 p.m. Barbara Haskell, curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, will present a talk entitled: Ralston Crawford: After Precisionism, Sheldon Concert Hall, admission free.

Review: Click here to read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch review.

Review: Click here to read the St. Louis Beacon review.

Review: Click here to read Bob Duffy’s blog post from the St. Louis Beacon.

Interview: Nancy Kranzberg interviews Olivia Lahs-Gonzales on KDHX!

Book: Click here to purchase the book Ralston Crawford and Jazz.

Essay: Click here to read the essay on Ralston Crawford by Gallery Director Olivia Lahs-Gonzales.

This exhibition is part of the American Arts Experience-St. Louis.

Featuring work by internationally recognized landscape design firms including: D.I.R.T. studio; dlandstudio; ESKYIU; Kaseman Beckman Advanced Strategies; Legge Lewis Legge; PEG Office of Landscape + Architecture; Stoss Landscape Urbanism; and W-A-N-T-E-D, this exhibit showcases a selection of contemporary landscape architecture projects that focus upon the use of materials in design. This exhibit continues the dialogue on landscape architecture established by recent initiatives in the St. Louis area, including the international design competition to reshape the area surrounding the Gateway Arch, and the creation of Citygarden and Old Post Office Plaza. The exhibition was commissioned by the Sheldon Art Galleries and is curated by Liane Hancock, Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of the Materials Resource Center in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Lunchtime Lecture in Architecture: Wednesday, July 13, 2010, 11:30 a.m. Exhibition curator Liane Hancock speaks on the exhibition. Free, Bernoudy Gallery of Architecture.

In collaboration with the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center in Memory of Gloria M. Goldstein, a department of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, this exhibition showcases works of art and selected writings created by children grades 6 through 12 who participated in the Holocaust Museum's annual Art and Writing Contest. The exhibition, which includes painting, film, sculpture, collage, video art and poetry, was received from students in public, private and religious schools— both Jewish and Christian—from the bi-State area and throughout the United States.

Holocaust Museum and Learning Center Manual For Teachers (Courtesy of the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center in Memory of Gloria M. Goldstein)

Curated by Daniel McGrath, the exhibition I'll Be Your Mirror explores the condition of mimicry and the appearance of the doppelganger. Included in this exhibition are photographs, sculpture, paintings and video works by an international array of artists including Charles Ray, Alison Jackson, Pablo Helugera, Slater Bradley, Gunther Herbst, Darren Harvey-Regan, Robert Goetz, B.J. Vogt, Juan Chavez and Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson.

Daniel McGrath is an adjunct professor in the art department at Webster University in St. Louis and a contributing art writer for Art US, Art Papers, Review Magazine and St. Louis Magazine.

Gallery Talk: Tuesday, October 18 at Noon, Daniel McGrath speaks on the exhibition, Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Gallery, admission free.

Read the Reviews:
Riverfront Times
St. Louis Beacon

Jim Dine Sculpture

The Ann Lee and Wilfred Konneker Gallery at the Sheldon Art Galleries is the site for the Jim Dine sculpture, The Heart Called Orchid, 2003. The sculpture is dedicated to the life and accomplishments of Dr. Leigh Gerdine, a founding trustee of the Sheldon Arts Foundation who devoted himself to the saving and renovation of the historic Sheldon Concert Hall and the creation of the Sheldon Art Galleries.

A beautiful bronze work on long-term loan from the Gateway Foundation St. Louis, the sculpture is a glowing golden heart that balances on its point on a trompe d'oeil "wooden" pallet, which on further examination is seen also to be made of bronze. A recurring theme in Dine's work since 1966, the heart emerges in prints, drawings, paintings and sculptures.

Jim Dine was born in 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio and rose to prominence in the 1960s with his performance and assemblage works. From the 1960s, Dine also began to incorporate representations of simple everyday objects into his works. His object-based imagery seen in paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures include tools, men's suits, bathrobes, hearts, and household objects among others and are metaphors for childhood memories, personal psychological states and self-portraits. Like Dine's suit and bathrobe images make reference to the artist's body and persona, his hearts contain layered metaphors about the body, sensuality, love, and as the artist describes them, he sees the heart as "the agent and the organ of my emotions."

Developed from a multiple-element sculpture created earlier this year, St. Louis-based artist Shawn Burkard presents three monolithic painted steel structures that reveal the imaginary framework of the originating work. Installed in the Lucy and Stanley Lopata Sculpture Garden, and in front of the Emerson Building, the works create a dialogue with neighboring contemporary architecture and The Sheldon's historic building.

Shawn Burkard has exhibited locally at the Bruno David Gallery, and serves as assistant in the sculpture studio of Frank Schwaiger.