Exhibitions

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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Ginger Rogers costume exhibition
March 2 – August 31 | Center for Missouri Studies, Columbia

Public Opening Reception: March 14, 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.


African American Art in Missouri
February 6 – May 9 | University of Missouri-Columbia

A new exhibit explores the history of African American Art in Missouri in the 20th and 21st centuries through the work of ten artists, with a special emphasis on artwork in the collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri, as well as artists associated with Mid Missouri and the University of Missouri-Columbia. The public is invited to view the exhibit at Ellis Library, Colonnade cases, on the Mizzou campus. 


African American Experience in the Ozarks
February 1 – March 31 | West Plains

Come see a new traveling exhibit by the State Historical Society of Missouri as we share stories and preserves the voices and memories of the people who call or have called the Ozarks home. Through a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Missouri Humanities, the State Historical society created an extensive list of primary and secondary sources related to African American life in the region.


Resurrection
November 1, 12:00 am – March 30, 11:59 pm | Columbia

This video Installation by Valerie Wedel, an art professor at William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri, features enlarged, hand-painted copies of letters that are held in the archives of the State Historical Society of Missouri. The images have been artistically “aged” for effect, crumpled, torn, and scattered to represent controversies surrounding access to historical information. The reversed and animated texts symbolize breathing life back into these stories. These animations are intended to revive the texts.

 


Formal portrait painting of Harry Truman, his wife Bess, and daughter Mary Margaret
May 3, 2023 – December 3, 2026 | Center for Missouri Studies Art Gallery

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.


Painting of soldiers preparing to board a ship to go to war. One soldier looks over his shoulder back at the viewer
May 3, 2023 – December 3, 2026 | Center for Missouri Studies Art Gallery

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.


Painting depicting chaotic scene of soldiers forcibly evacuating civilians
May 3, 2023 – December 3, 2026 | Center for Missouri Studies Art Gallery

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. The  evacuation order that took place in the midst of  Missouri/Kansas guerilla fighting  in 1863.  Also on display is the Bingham painting Watching the Cargo, a classic example of the artist's genre images representing the Missouri workers involved in river commerce.  Finally a number of Bingham portraits are also exhibited.