In 2019, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art began celebration of twenty-five years of extraordinary collecting, exhibitions, and programs. As the only collecting contemporary art museum in the state of Missouri, Kemper Museum is grateful to those who have helped grow and enhance the Permanent Collection through generous gifts of art. The exhibition, Gifts of Art:…

Forever in Your Debt features a floor installation of 600 6” stoneware bowls, some of which contain loose change, and 3 large mixed-media sheets composed of dollar bills, watercolor, gouache, graphite and resin. Through symbol, metaphor and collective action, Forever in Your Debt references the U.S. student loan debt, totaling over 1.5 trillion dollars and…

Portrait miniatures are intimate tokens of love, loss, allegiance, and affection exchanged between friends. The earliest examples were painted in watercolor on vellum (animal skin). By the 1600s, new techniques of painting enamels facilitated an artist’s ability to paint delicate portraits resembling tiny oil paintings. They offered a robust alternative to watercolor on ivory or…

At the turn of the twentieth century, the circumstances of a changing modern world were visible on the stage of the Paris ballet. Social classes mixed in this public setting, where some of the city’s poorest young women pirouetted across the stage for paying audiences. The dancers’ internationally influenced costumes often reflected larger cultural exchanges.…

Master Printer Robert Blackburn (1920–2003) made a tremendous impact on printmaking in the United States. Over a career that spanned six decades, his avant-garde ideas propelled American modernism forward and affirmed printmaking as fine art. Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking situates Blackburn beside his teachers, friends, and collaborators with whom he engaged throughout his…