Art and educational exhibitions illustrate transformative moments in Missouri and U.S. history. The State Historical Society of Missouri houses exhibition galleries at the Center for Missouri Studies in Columbia. SHSMO also provides materials for display in galleries and exhibition spaces across the state.
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Through the Lens: The Photography of Raymond Corey is on display this summer at the SHSMO Kansas City Research Center. Corey worked as a news photographer for the Coffeyville (KS) Journal, the Kansas City Kansan, and the Kansas City Star.
The exhibition Mail Carrier with a Camera: Photographs by Burford Royston features over 75 captivating images, mostly taken in the 1950s, that chronicle the lives of rural Howard County, Missouri, residents along Royston’s mail route. These photographs were selected from hundreds of slides in the Burford Leon Royston Collection, recently donated to the State Historical Society of Missouri by the Royston family.
Senators Tom Eagleton and John Danforth served alongside each other representing Missouri in the U.S. Senate from 1977 to1987. These two influential senators from opposing parties agreed as much as they disagreed on legislative priorities for their state. Their working relationship and friendship can be studied because of a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, which allowed SHSMO’s archivists to process the papers of multiple elected officials from Missouri, including Senators Danforth and Eagleton.
In honor of Disney Studios 100th birthday, the SHSMO art gallery presents Daily Disney: Walt Disney Cartoons in the Funny Pages. Disney, who grew up in the Missouri towns of Marceline and Kansas City, cross promoted his animated cartoons with nationally syndicated comic strips. This exhibition includes a selection of these cartoons, as well as other images, such as a photo of Missouri artist Thomas Hart Benton at Disney Studios, that reflect Disney's powerful influence on American culture.
Benton & Benton: The Senator & The Artist explores art and material culture related to Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858), who served five terms and was known as “Old Bullion” for his support of gold currency, and his great-grand-nephew and namesake, Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), the famed Missouri artist and founder of the American Regionalist Movement.
Greta Kempton's Portrait of the Truman Family (President Harry S. Truman, Elizabeth “Bess” Truman and their daughter Mary Margaret) is on permanent exhibition at SHSMO. The triple portrait was commissioned for the State Historical Society of Missouri with left-over funds raised by Missouri Democrats for Truman’s 1948 inaugural celebration. The painting was officially presented to the Society in 1952.
Our gallery space includes a permanent exhibition of ten large World War II paintings created by Thomas Hart Benton between 1941 and 1943. These images reflect the anxiety, horror, grief, and resolve that Benton and his audience experienced after the U.S. entered WW II on December 7, 1941. Benton responded to the national crisis with a series of nightmarish visions of war, eight of which were purchased by Abbott Laboratories and exhibited in New York City in 1942.
Our permanent exhibition of works by George Caleb Bingham includes the monumental 1869/70 Civil War painting, Gen. Order No. 11, which represents the execution of a military directive evacuating civilians in four Missouri border counties.
