The Arts
Sheldon hosts diverse exhibits There's more to this Grand Center location than music For The Edge In the heart of St. Louis' Grand Center arts district, The Sheldon offers the St. Louis area a wealth of cultural resources in the tradition of its visionary founders. Designed by the noted 1904 World's Fair architect Louis C. Spiering, The Sheldon was built in 1912 as the home of the Ethical Society of St. Louis. Musicians and public speakers throughout the years have enjoyed the perfect acoustics of the 712-seat Concert Hall, earning The Sheldon its reputation as "The Carnegie Hall of St. Louis." Well-known singers and ensembles have performed at The Sheldon, and speakers such as Albert Einstein, Dwight Eisenhower and Ernest Hemingway have spoken from its stage. When the Ethical Society relocated to St. Louis County in 1964, The Sheldon became a primarily music venue. Then, in 1974, a former singer with the Duke Ellington Orchestra purchased the facility, transforming The Sheldon into a church and the site for many glorious jazz and gospel concerts. A California attorney with a love for chamber music purchased the building in 1984 at the urging of the Paganini String Quartet. He began operating The Sheldon in 1986 as a venue for concerts and community events. Determined to preserve and establish The Sheldon as one of St. Louis' greatest cultural resources, the Sheldon Arts Foundation was formed in 1988. The Foundation purchased the building in 1991, and today The Sheldon Arts Foundation is governed by a 45-member Board of Directors. A non-profit organization, The Sheldon relies on public support to carry out its mission: to preserve and operate the historic Sheldon Concert Hall and the Sheldon Art Galleries as an independent cultural institution, to produce and present a diverse array of quality concerts, art exhibits and educational programs of local and national importance, and to provide facilities and services for a wide variety of community organizations. The Sheldon Concert Hall is the site of over 300 events each year, including great jazz, folk and classical music, featuring the world's finest musicians. Artists such as Dave Brubeck, Cleo Laine, José Carreras, Herbie Hancock, Doc Watson, Joan Baez, Willie Nelson, Julian Bream, Itzhak Perlman and Jessye Norman have recently performed at The Sheldon. In addition, The Sheldon presents Family Concerts, educational programs for schools and Coffee Concerts. The "Notes From Home" series, featuring St. Louis musicians, is presented weekday evenings. The Sheldon Ballroom, Spiering Room and Art Galleries host workshops and master classes, post-concert receptions, fundraising events, corporate presentations and community meetings. In 1998, The Sheldon expanded its artistic focus to include six new art galleries in a $5 million dollar expansion project. Improvements included complete wheelchair accessibility, new restrooms, two new lobbies, a sculpture garden, added parking and in 1999, the 500-seat Louis Spiering Room. The Sheldon Art Galleries encompass 7,000 square feet and feature exhibits on photography, architecture, St. Louis artists and collection, jazz history, emerging artists and children's art. Over 75,000 visitors explore the galleries each year. Current exhibits in the art galleries are: • The Bellweather Gallery of St. Louis
For The Edge
Visitors contemplate works of art in one of the Sheldon's exhibit halls. Artists Liquid Terrain: 20 Years of Works on Paper by Eva Lundsager, through August 18, 2012 Mining the territory between landscape and abstraction to create vivid, unreal worlds, Eva Lundsager intermingles pools of rich pigment, graphite marks and Sumi ink washes, to create gem-like works that suggest terrestrial emanations and evoke heightened psychological moments. This exhibition presents a career overview of her watercolor drawings from the last 22 years. Lundsager's works on paper and paintings have been exhibited nationally and internationally in solo exhibitions at the Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York; the Jack Tilton Gallery, New York; the Whanki Museum, Seoul; Galerie Von Lintel, Munich; and the Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, St. Louis, and are in the permanent collections of the St. Louis Art Museum and the Dallas Museum of Art. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America and ArtNews, and in 2001, she was recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in painting. • The History of Jazz Gallery The Beat Goes On: Instruments from the Hartenberger World Music Collection, through August 18, 2012 The three rooms of the History of Jazz Galleries are the setting for a fascinating exhibition of drums and other instruments from the Hartenberger World Music Collection, based in St. Louis. Dr. Aurelia Hartenberger, who has collected for over 35 years, has put together a collection of instruments featuring prestigious drums from Africa, historical civil war instruments and one-of-a-kind custom made modern jazz instruments – including some that were once owned by nationally recognized jazz musicians Clark Terry, Artie Shaw and others. Aurelia Hartenberger is adjunct Associate Professor of Music at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, Webster University and World Music Specialist at Maryville University. She is a 5-time recipient of the Teacher of the Year award at the local, district
and state levels, and has served as president of several music education associations. • The Gallery of Photography Odell Mitchell, Jr. Retrospective, through September 1, 2012 This exhibition highlights photographs by Odell Mitchell, Jr., from both his professional career and personal work made over the last 30 years. Mitchell was an award-winning photographer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 24 years. In addition to his career at the Post-Dispatch, Mitchell has taught seminars on photography and has been a judge in various photographic competitions. He currently teaches photography to college and high school students. • The Bernoudy Gallery of Architecture Made in the Shade: Paul Rudolph's Florida Houses Revisited, through September 1, 2012 Models, drawings and photographs of Rudolph's pivotal mid-century architecture are juxtaposed with full-scale prototypes, models and drawings from a studio project conducted at Washington University's Graduate School of Architecture, bringing together two separate exhibitions: Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses, an exhibition of the architect's early residential work, and Made in the Shade: Re-fabricating Florida's Modern Architecture, examples from the studio project at Washington University in St. Louis. The exhibition is curated by Ken Tracy, Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture, Sam Fox School of Visual Arts and Design, Washington University in St. Louis. The exhibition is sponsored in part by the Department of Architecture, Sam Fox School of Visual Arts and Design, Washington University in St. Louis. • The AT&T Gallery of Children's Art Art by Children of Artists, through September 22, 2012 The children of artists are surrounded by, and exposed to, art from the day they are born. Research shows that integrating art-making into daily life helps develop cognitive, fine motor, problem solving, and many other necessary life-skills. The children whose works are featured in this exhibition
July 12, 2012
are in a unique position to be inspired by, and to inspire, the work of their parents. This exhibition features the work of over 16 young artists from the greater St. Louis area whose parents are actively engaged in the arts community. • The Nancy Spiritas Kranzberg Gallery Anomalous Perspectives: The 2011 Critical Mass Creative Stimulus Award Exhibition Featuring Sarrita Hunn, Elysia Mann and B.J. Vogt, through September 15, 2012 The Creative Stimulus Project is an award given annually to three St. Louis area visual artists based upon the excellence of their work and their commitment to building their artistic careers. This exhibition is curated by Emily Hemeyer, an artist and 2010-2011 Creative Stimulus Project award recipient. The Creative Stimulus Project is one of several endeavors of Critical Mass for the Visual Arts, an organization that promotes contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region. • Lucy and Stanley Lopata Sculpture Garden The sculpture garden is located between the Sheldon Concert Hall and the adjoining Emerson Galleries building, and features an Italian marble fountain from the 1904 World’s Fair and a terra cotta lion’s head, created by the Winkle Terra Cotta Company for the former Buder Building, built in 1903. In addition, Winged Victory, a six-foot terra cotta Roman Victory Figure, also from the Winkle Terra Cotta company saved from the 1898 Title Guaranty building in St. Louis, greets visitors as they enter the street level entrance. The Sheldon is located at 3648 Washington Boulevard in St. Louis. Art Gallery hours are Tuesdays, Noon – 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, Noon – 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and one hour prior to Sheldon performances and during intermission. Admission to the Art Galleries is free. Concert performance times and ticket prices vary. For more information on these exhibitions or on upcoming concert performances or concert series, visit the website at www.thesheldon.org or call 314533-9900.
On the Edge of the Weekend
15