“Julie Dunn-Morton's 160 Years of Art is a valuable resource for scholars and the public concerned with regional culture and its emergence within a national framework. Where better to see this than through the art collection of the oldest public library west of the Mississippi? The marvelous collection of paintings, prints, drawings, and sculpture at the Mercantile Library offers a cultural map of enlightened public and private patronage that continues into the twenty-first century.”—Angela Miller, Professor of Art History and Archeology, Washington University in St. Louis

“In many of my research undertakings, I have greatly enjoyed working in and viewing the art collections of the St. Louis Mercantile Library—paintings and prints by Alfred Jacob Miller, Karl Bodmer, John James Audubon, George Caleb Bingham, and Charles Deas, to mention only a few—and this catalogue is a welcome entrée into the library’s great collections. Dr. Julie Dunn-Morton has provided a great service to the general reader as well as the scholar in producing a catalogue that not only makes the collections more accessible but also is fun to read.”—Ron Tyler, Director, Amon Carter Museum

“The Mercantile Library is St. Louis's oldest and one of its most cherished cultural institutions. What is less well known is the strength of its art collection. No more is this a hidden story. Julie Dunn-Morton’s new 160 Years of Art at the St. Louis Mercantile Library masterfully presents the rich variety of art that not only defines the heart and soul of the institution but also charts the deep and meaningful art history of the region. Beautifully illustrated, the concise essays on each of the paintings, sculptures, and works on paper presented in this book will set the standard for all future assessments of this remarkable collection.”—Andrew Walker, Curator of American Art, Saint Louis Art Museum

The St. Louis Mercantile Library Association has, from the time of its founding in 1846, exhibited and collected fine art, amassing a collection that complements its research holdings while also reflecting the tastes, interests, and cultural aspirations of its constituency. As such, the collection is particularly strong in artists who lived and worked in the city of St. Louis and the state of Missouri and who created works inspired by literary, political, and historical subjects.

Numerous donations of sculpture have helped form a nucleus of works that brings to life the association’s literary collections, while the predominance of landscape paintings is a natural outgrowth of St. Louis’s nineteenth-century landscape movement that was tied to national and international art styles. Appropriately, the collection also features portraits of political, literary, and social leaders created in various media by some of the leading artists of their day.

This fully illustrated handbook presents highlights of the paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, and folk and decorative arts that make up the Mercantile Library Association’s permanent collection and that reflect the institution’s past 160 years of cultural activity as well as its ongoing role as a museum for art of the American Midwest.

About the Author

Julie Dunn-Morton is Curator of Fine Art Collections for the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. While completing her graduate work at the University of Delaware she studied the work of American sculptor Harrier Hosmer as well as art patrons and collectors in early St. Louis for a forthcoming book on that topic. These dual interests resulted in the essay “Sculpture Collecting and Patronage” in The Encyclopedia of Sculpture (2004). She was recently guest curator for The Great River: Frederick Oakes Sylvester in St. Louis (2005) cosponsored by the Mercantile Library and the Sheldon Art Galleries, and is pursuing research for a catalogue raisonné on Sylvester to be issued by the Mercantile Library Association. Other recent exhibitions for the Library include Missouri Splendor: St. Louis Artists and the Landscape (2006) and The Art of Bronze (2004).