Current Exhibitions
2024 Congressional Art Competition
May 31, 2024-July 7, 2024
Opening Reception 5 p.m.-8 p.m., May 31, 2024
U.S. Rep. Cori Bush is proud to sponsor the 2024 Congressional Art Competition, honoring the inspiring work created by young artists in Missouri's 1st Congressional District. Each spring, members of Congress honor high school students from across the country through this visual art competition. Since the competition began, more than 650,000 high school students have participated. Now in its 24th year, the Artistic Discovery Contest showcases the talents of high school area students. This year's optional theme is "INSPIRE STL." Every student who enters will receive a recognition certificate, and their artwork will be featured in an exhibit at the Saint Louis University Museum of Art. A panel of local artists will judge all entries and select one first-place winner, followed by a second-place winner, a third-place winner, and two honorable mentions. They will also award the So St. Louis Award to the student whose work most closely matches this year's theme.
The first-place winner receives two roundtrip airfare tickets to attend a ceremony in Washington, D.C. The winning entry from each congressional district is displayed in the U.S. Capitol for one year.
Long-term Exhibitions
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.