EDUCATOR e-NEWS

The Saint Louis Art Museum invites teachers to explore its newest online teaching and learning resource: Discover Monet. This interactive website delves into Claude Monet's monumental painting, Water Lilies (c.1915-26), a perennial favorite of students and teachers alike. Interdisciplinary approaches to learning situate Water Lilies within a cultural context and offer a variety of ways to discover the evolution of this masterpiece: by theme, date, or geographical location. The site includes a wealth of classroom and gallery resources such as a downloadable teaching poster, looking guide, and multidisciplinary lesson plans. Activities and lesson plans were created by members of the Museum's Teacher Advisory Group, who worked with education staff to co-produce this online resource. The site will evolve as additions are made, so please continue to check for new content as it becomes available.

Each spring, St. Louis area high school students and their teachers are invited to the Museum to work with a renowned contemporary artist during a day-long program entitled Exploring with the Artist. Students collaborate directly with the visiting artist, who challenges them with an artistic problem requiring a creative solution. This year's visiting artist was Willie Cole, whose triptych Man Spirit Mask was featured in the Museum's recent exhibition, At the Crossroads: Exploring Black Identity in Contemporary Art. Cole is a printmaker, sculptor, and self-confessed perceptual engineer known for thought-provoking works in which he transforms multiples of ordinary items such as irons, shoes, and bicycles into sculptures which transcend their everyday, utilitarian origins.

Throughout the day's program, Cole encouraged the students to analyze the concepts of language, history, and the meaning of material objects – themes which Cole routinely explores in his own work. The day began with an interactive dialogue during a visit to the Crossroads exhibition, followed by a session in the Museum's Study Room for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs where students were introduced to the art and history of printed books. They were then charged with the task of re-conceptualizing books under Cole's guidance, first by verbally deconstructing them, and then physically altering an assortment of discarded and donated books to create sculptural portraits and contained environments.

Exploring with the Artist is one of many experiential Museum learning programs designed to foster student engagement with the arts through cross-disciplinary thinking, visual literacy, and problem solving. Please check for information updates on this and other school program offerings during the coming academic year.

The Saint Louis Art Museum is pleased to announce Karen Johnson as the recipient of this year's Master Teacher Summer Fellowship. Karen is a social studies teacher at Nerinx Hall High School where she advocates real-world applications of civic engagement and global awareness. Karen holds Bachelor's degrees in history, education, and fine arts and is currently working on a Master's degree in International Relations at Webster University. She has traveled extensively in Europe, China, Japan, Turkey, and the Middle East, using these experiences to generate new and innovative curricula for her students. Says Karen, "I am very excited about creating ways to help teachers both integrate more of the Museum into existing lessons and to implement the Common Core and Twenty-First Century Skills into their classrooms. My goal is to expose students to as many different cultures as possible, and one of the best ways of doing that is through art."

The Master Teacher Summer Fellowship is awarded annually to a local educator with an interest in museum education. During the four-week summer appointment, the Fellow researches art objects, develops interdisciplinary learning materials, and prepares two museum education programs to be implemented during the following school year. Watch for updates on Karen's progress in future editions of Educator eNews.

The National Alliance of African and African-American Art Support Groups, a group composed of museum professionals and individual supporters dedicated to furthering institutional and public awareness of African and African American art, meets annually to discuss both the successes and challenges of the constantly evolving African and African American arts field. The Saint Louis Art Museum will host this year's conference in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Museum's Romare Bearden Graduate Minority Museum Fellowship. Navigating the Mainstream: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future will serve as a forum for examining best practices for collecting, interpreting, presenting, and preserving cultural heritage in mainstream museums. A wide variety of perspectives will be considered in presentations by distinguished scholars and internationally renowned artists; engaging panel discussions; and cultural tours of St. Louis arts institutions, private collections, regional entertainment and cuisine.

This exhibition presents a carefully curated selection of prints from Kara Walker's 2005 portfolio, Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), in which the artist appropriates and juxtaposes original prints from an 1866 edition of Harper's Weekly with her own contemporary silkscreened silhouettes. Walker's revised narratives critique Southern history, institutionalized slavery, and black (mis-) representation. These subversive, large-scale prints are displayed alongside reproductions of Civil War-era newspapers and periodicals, which provide historical perspective to Walker's contemporary viewpoint.

Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) by Kara Walker will be on view in Gallery 321 through August 26, 2012.

This summer, the Saint Louis Art Museum resumes work on an ambitious conservation project to save a historic treasure of local significance, the only surviving panorama of the Mississippi River.

Learn more about the Museum's preservation efforts and public programs offered in conjunction with this exhibition, on view in the Main Exhibition Galleries through September 3, 2012.

Federico Barocci: Renaissance Master presents over 140 exceptional paintings and drawings, many never before seen in the United States. As one of the most innovative Italian artists of the 16th century, Barocci, a relative unknown to North American audiences, established new drawing styles and novel interpretations of religious subjects. A major influence on European masters from the 16th to 18th centuries, Barocci's art combines the beauty of the High Renaissance and the dynamism of the Baroque.

Accompanied by a catalogue and public programs, Federico Barocci: Renaissance Master delivers significant new scholarship and the unique opportunity to study and understand a master's artistic process. This exhibition is highly recommended for students of all ages as it offers valuable teaching opportunities—particularly for students of religious, historical, Italian, and studio art studies. Watch for updates about this exciting upcoming exhibition.