Exhibitions

Senators Tom Eagleton and John Danforth served alongside each other representing Missouri in the US 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 Black History Month, SHSMO has prepared a special art exhibition at Ellis Library that explores the work by painter and graphic designer Spencer T. Banks, through artwork and photography he produced for African American businesses in St. Louis. Art curator Joan Stack will present a lecture on Banks Feb. 26, 12-1 p.m. at Ellis Library, Room 114A. Included in the exhibit is Banks’s serial comic strip Pokenia, which ran in the St. Louis Argus from 1939-40.

Artwork plays a significant role in fostering environmental stewardship and the Missouri Department of Conservation has a long history of partnering with artists to promote this mission.  This new exhibition in the SHSMO Art Gallery features work by two artists who have made significant contributions to Missouri’s conservation movement: current MDC nature photographer Noppadol Paothong and former MDC artist Charles Schwarz.

About the Artists:

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.

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.

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.