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SLUMA Exhibitions

Current Exhibitions 

Congressional Art Competition

May 15, 2026 to July 12, 2026

Opening Reception May 15, 5-8 p.m.

U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell is proud to sponsor the 2026 Congressional Art Competition, honoring the inspiring work created by young artists in Missouri's 1st Congressional District. Each spring, high school students from across the country are honored by members of Congress through this visual art competition. Since the competition began, more than 650,000 high school students have participated. The annual Artistic Discovery Contest showcases the talents of high school students in the area. Every student who enters will receive a certificate of recognition and have their artwork featured in an exhibition at the Saint Louis University Museum of Art. A panel of judges assesses all entries and selects first-, second- and third-place winners. The first-place winner receives two roundtrip tickets to attend a ceremony in Washington, D.C. and the winning entry from each congressional district is displayed in the U.S. Capitol for one year.

Rhythms of Ancestry

May 12, 2026

Rhythms of Ancestry was curated by students in the Art of the African Diaspora class taught in Fall 2025 by Associate Professor Olubukola Gbadegesin, Ph.D. Combining music and visual art Rhythms of Ancestry is a homage to the visual, spiritual and musical legacies of people of African descent in Africa, South America and the United States.

Featured art includes African masks, diasporic paintings, and songs from Africa and the diaspora. The chosen artworks reflect both the cultural roots of their creator and the persistent spiritual and cultural connections between communities across the African Diaspora.

Fostered by the belief that the arts of the African Diaspora are not just images to be viewed but an experience meant to be lived and celebrated, Rhythms of Ancestry creates a multimedia experience highlighting the many vibrant African diasporic communities across the world. Rhythms of Ancestry is a story of cultural resilience, illustrating how African-descended communities have used music, art, and ceremony to resist erasure, shape identity, and celebrate life.

Headphones and connection cords are available at the front desk to borrow during your visit.

Intersections: Memory, Identity, and Place

Sept. 12, 2025 to May 31, 2026

Memory, identity, and place are integral to the human experience; this exhibit explores how contemporary Aboriginal and non-Indigenous Australian artists engage with these interwoven themes. Curated with an emphasis on thematic inquiry, Intersections challenges the viewer to reconsider established narratives and develop their own interpretation of the central themes, expanding the scope of what contemporary Australian Art can represent.

This exhibit features a selection of Australian artworks gifted by Gerald and Mary Reid Brunstrom to SLUMA and MOCRA. Mary Brunstrom and the Austral Galley in St. Louis, which she founded, have played pivotal roles in introducing contemporary Australian and Aboriginal art to North American audiences.

This exhibit features audio narration. Headphones and connection cords are available at the front desk to borrow during your visit.

Einar Hákonarson: The Auschwitz Etchings

Over the course of a 40-year career, Einar Hákonarson (b. 1945) has become one of Iceland’s most distinguished artists, with 30 exhibitions in multiple countries. He was educated at the Iceland Academy of the Arts (Iceland’s national art school) and the Valand School of Fine Arts of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Primarily a painter, he has also won numerous awards for his work in printmaking, and he reignited interest in the medium of printmaking in Iceland. In 1965, as a student at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, he made a life-changing trip to Auschwitz. Reflecting on that experience, the artist said, “this visit [to Auschwitz] influenced me tremendously. I simply was not the same as before.”

While a large portion of his work since the Auschwitz visit has dealt with human suffering, Hákonarson made a series of six etchings between 1965 and 1967 that specifically referenced his reflections on Auschwitz. He dedicated the six etchings to the victims of the Holocaust as well as to all victims of hatred, bigotry and injustice. Although intimate in scale, the etchings explore the spirit of the human person to persevere and triumph even in the midst of atrocities on such an epic scale. The etchings remain witnesses to humanity’s dark side, but they are also expressions of hope that in the face of such evil, the vigilant human spirit can still triumph and prevail.

We invite you to spend time with these works, to read the artist’s own reflections on the themes in each of the prints, and to see that, in light of the many contemporary global trouble spots, the message of the Auschwitz Etchings is timelier than ever. 

Cartier: A Visionary Journey

In 1847, Louis-François Cartier founded the luxury jewelry and watch brand Cartier. Through his visionary entrepreneurship and the strategic and creative acumen of his sons and grandsons, Cartier rose to become the pinnacle of the international jewelry industry. Louis-François' grandson Pierre married Ella Rumsey, daughter of American tycoon Moses Lee Rumsey Jr. This strategic marital alliance facilitated Cartier's expansion into the American market.

This exhibition provides a glimpse into the lives of the Cartier and Rumsey families through photographs, letters, and documents gifted to Saint Louis University by the family of Marion Rumsey Cartier, daughter of Pierre and Ella, in 1997.