Always Modern at the Saint Louis Art Museum

Exhibit dates: November 7, 2025, through March 15, 2026
Location: Gallery 235 and Sidney S. and Sadie M. Cohen Gallery 234

Modern is more than a moment in time or a style—it’s a spirit of bold experimentation, fresh ideas and deep engagement with contemporary life. Always Modern celebrates this spirit through masterworks of German art and design from the museum’s renowned collection. Spanning 1880 to the postwar years, the exhibition showcases paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, and design by 16 influential artists, demonstrating modernism’s enduring power to captivate, confront and inspire. 

Organized into six sections, Always Modern traces pivotal moments in German art history. Highlights include Max Klinger’s visionary print cycle Eve and the Future, unflinching self-portraits by Max Beckmann, the raw force of Expressionism and the technical brilliance of Jugendstil and the Bauhaus. A final selection of postwar works gestures toward the creative resurgence of the 1980s, bridging past innovations with the present. 

Far from a look back, Always Modern invites you to discover how modern German art and design continues to challenge conventions, inspire new ideas and shape the way we see the world today. 

Always Modern: German Art and Design from the Collection is curated by Melissa Venator, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Modern Art.