Check this page often for upcoming exhibition announcements. For any questions about current exhibitions, please call 314-516-7248 or email MercantileLibrary@umsl.edu.
Now on View:
Casting a Long Shadow: Frederick Oakes Sylvester & His Circle
Level 2, Wallace H. Smith Gallery of Art
Casting a Long Shadow: Frederick Oakes Sylvester and His Circle celebrates the role of this esteemed artist, whose work is an anchor of the Mercantile Library’s collection, St. Louis’s cultural development during Sylvester’s time here, and the shared influences among his contemporaries and followers.
This exhibition, inspired by an ongoing Catalog Raisonné of Sylvester’s work, is drawn almost exclusively from the Mercantile Library Art Museum’s ever-growing collection of Missouri art and supporting rare books, reflecting the museum’s mission to tell the story of Missouri and the nation’s heartland region by collecting, exhibiting and providing a venue for Missouri art and artists and encouraging partnerships between scholars, artists, collectors and the region’s cultural community. This mission grows from the library’s earliest days when its collection and exhibitions earned it the name “the city’s first art gallery.”
Through close relationships with artists like Charles Deas and George Caleb Bingham, the early Mercantile was a haven for art, artists, and art lovers. Over time, regional art came into the spotlight with the artwork of Thomas Hart Benton and the scholarship of art historian William Gerdts, whose seminal Art Across America in 1990 brought regional artists from across the country to the attention of the art world like never before. This scholarship inspires our mission and serves as a foundation for exhibitions like this one, presented as the inaugural exhibition for the Wallace H. Smith Gallery of Art, so generously funded by the Bellwether Foundation, with additional funding from the Kemper Foundation and the Orthwein Foundation. This new gallery, so strongly supported by the major arts foundations of St. Louis, marks the beginning of an exciting new era in the Mercantile’s art mission.
A full-color catalog accompanies the exhibition that can be purchased at the Mercantile's gift shop, The Lantern.
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Observing Independence Day in Books, Maps, & Prints
at the Mercantile Library for 250 Years
July 1, 2026 - TBD
Level 3: Seifert & Medart Galleries
Level 2: Kranzberg Gallery & Freerks' Stairwell
Level 1: Maffitt Bates Gallery
In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the St. Louis Mercantile Library presents a series of exhibitions exploring the enduring legacy of America's founding through rare books, prints, maps, newspapers, and contemporary book arts.
The centerpiece exhibition, UNUM, is on view in the Level 3 Seifert Gallery and features a nationally recognized collection of newly commissioned Declaration of Independence-inspired broadsides created by leading fine press printers and book artists from across the country. Also on exhibit in the Gallery’s center is an early, meticulously executed facsimile (from the Lakeside Press many decades ago) of the first printed broadside of the Declaration. The original Durand print of Trumbull’s Signing the Declaration, and an early mid-19th century print, “The Day We Celebrate” published in Philadelphia by Laing in 1888 flank the UNUM artists’ new efforts in commemorating this venerable document.
Additional displays throughout the Library invite visitors to explore America's history from multiple perspectives. Marking the Calendar in the Magazines, located in the Level 3 Medart Gallery, showcases colorful July Fourth magazine covers from the twentieth century. Early printings of the Declaration, including rare nineteenth-century printings of the Declaration of Independence are displayed on the Freerks' Staircase leading to the main level of the Mercantile Library. On Level 2, visitors will find July 4 in the Dailies, Weeklies and the Gentleman's Magazine in the lobby, highlighting Revolutionary-era newspapers and historic Independence Day publications, while the Kranzberg Gallery presents Washington's Life, featuring rare prints, manuscripts, and early newspaper printings related to George Washington and the nation's founding. Finally, the Level 1 Maffitt Bates Gallery explores Revolution Mapping, displaying exceptional eighteenth-century maps and atlases that document the geography of the American Revolution.
Together, these exhibitions offer a rare opportunity to experience treasures from the Mercantile Library's collections while reflecting on 250 years of American history and the enduring significance of the nation's founding documents.
