German Expressionism collection viewed through art conservation lens in new exhibition

ST. LOUIS, Jan. 29, 2024—A new free exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum takes visitors behind the scenes and below the surface for an inside look at art from the museum’s permanent collection.

“Concealed Layers: Uncovering Expressionist Paintings” opens with a public celebration at 4 pm March 15. It is on view through Oct. 27 in the Caro Nichols Holmes Gallery 214 and Sherry and Gary Wolff Gallery 215.

“Concealed Layers” presents recent discoveries from a three-year, comprehensive technical analysis of SLAM’s world-class collection of German Expressionist paintings. Of the 48 paintings studied, 11 will be featured in the exhibition along with conservation images and examples of tools and materials used during research. Highlights include stick-figure studio graffiti in Oskar Kokoschka’s “The Painter II,” revealed by infrared reflectography. A previously undiscovered lake scene appeared in the X-radiograph of August Macke’s “Landscape with Cows, Sailboat, and Painted-in Figures,” and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s important early painting “Portrait of a Woman” regained its original title—”Portrait of Gerti”—from an inscription on the back.

“This new research has transformed our knowledge about the collection and underscores the essential role of art conservation at the museum,” said Melissa Venator, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Modern Art and co-curator of the exhibition. “As art historians, we can study a work for years without really knowing it. Conservation gives us some objective data about how an artwork was made. And sometimes, like with the paintings in this exhibition, those discoveries form the basis of entirely new interpretations.”

The museum’s conservation department houses specialized labs for paintings, three-dimensional objects, works on paper, textiles and frames staffed by experts who care for the more than 36,000 artworks in SLAM’s global collection. Technical analysis is a bedrock of conservation. It includes activities ranging from physical examination to diagnostic imaging with X-ray, infrared and ultraviolet light, all designed to identify an artwork’s materials and applied techniques.

“Conservation is about so much more than cleaning art and repairing damage,” said Courtney Books, associate painting conservator and exhibition co-curator. “Since its origin, the field has evolved to use modern methods and advanced technologies that can unlock mysteries surrounding an object’s material history — essential research for providing ongoing care and optimizing future treatments.”

The exhibition and conservation research initiative were undertaken in conjunction with the Museum’s new collection catalogue, “German Expressionism: Paintings at the Saint Louis Art Museum,” which is available for sale in the Museum Shop.

The Saint Louis Art Museum’s collection of German Expressionist paintings is one of the most comprehensive in the nation. It contains 50 works, which date from the movement’s origins around 1900 to the dark years of censorship during World War II. This expansive collection is thanks in part to local businessman Morton D. May, who in 1950 developed a passion for modern German art. He assembled formidable collections and left them to the museum at the time of his death in 1983. They joined a smaller number of Expressionist works donated to or purchased by the museum starting in the 1940s. May’s gift inspired museum leaders to expand the collection with major acquisitions of contemporary German art in the 1980s and ‘90s.

CONTACT: Molly Morris, molly.morris@slam.org, 314.655.5250