Time Capsule: WWII-era service lounge in Sculpture Hall

“Time Capsule” is a 1 Fine Arts Blog series drawing on the rich history of the Saint Louis Art Museum as documented through its institutional records. Established in 1976, the Museum Archives preserve and provide access to historic records chronicling spaces, events, exhibitions, and other activities. Materials from the Archives are open to the public by appointment in the Richardson Memorial Library’s reading room.

On July 4, 1943, Museum visitors entering Sculpture Hall would have encountered something unexpected in the northwest alcove: not an exhibition, but a living room. Beneath hanging textiles intended to soften the acoustics, uniformed service members gathered to read the newspaper, write letters home, sketch, and relax. Furnished with sofas, chairs, and a long table, the Museum’s newly opened service lounge offered “a comfortable and pleasant place for rest, smoking and conversation,” according to the Museum’s annual report that year.

The lounge’s opening coincided with a local exhibition of artwork created by servicemen stationed at Jefferson Barracks, tying the Museum’s programming directly to the military community arriving in St. Louis during World War II. Costing approximately $3,000 from installation to decoration, the lounge space accommodated about 30 visitors and transformed part of Sculpture Hall into an intimate social-gathering spot. Stacks of popular magazines and newspapers were available along with supplies for drawing or letter writing.

The lounge quickly became one of the Museum’s busiest gathering spaces. Weekend attendance surged, with hundreds of visitors signing the guest register during the first three months alone. Volunteer hostesses welcomed guests and introduced many first-time visitors to Museum resources. Although intended as an informal retreat rather than an event venue, the lounge occasionally hosted special events. On one such occasion, the Newberry Radio Company lent a television set so visitors could watch a televised Museum program broadcast on a local station.

Behind the scenes, the lounge emerged during a period of temporary transition for the Museum. With director Perry T. Rathbone away serving with combat artists in the Navy Art and Poster Section, acting director Charles Nagel proposed the creation of the lounge in February 1943 in response to the growing military population in the region. Nagel supervised the furnishing of the space and navigated practical, operation-related questions, including whether smoking would be permitted indoors. The Missouri Inspection Bureau ultimately approved smoking within the designated lounge alcove in Sculpture Hall, but not to extend beyond it into the surrounding galleries.

The service lounge also existed alongside broader 1940s exhibition programming that reflected national patriotism and military service. During these years, the Museum presented exhibitions such as Our Navy in Action (1943), Art of the Armed Forces (1943), World War II Memorial Competition Drawings (1944), Soldier Arts and Skills (1945), and Wings Over the Pacific (1945). Together, these exhibitions and the lounge itself positioned the Museum as a civic gathering place.

On October 4, 1945, following the end of World War II, the lounge was converted back to public use; Rathbone resumed his directorship later that year. Though the service lounge occupied only a brief chapter in the Museum’s history, it embodied the same welcoming hospitality for which the Museum is known to this day. As detailed in a 1943 Bulletin of the City Art Museum, “Appreciative comments and suggestions from those who have used the lounge indicate that it is filling a real need, particularly since there are a considerable number of ‘repeaters’ who have found the Museum worth more than a single visit and have evidently enjoyed the use of the lounge and often the restaurant and library as well.”