Sometimes we become so used to public artworks, we almost don’t notice they are there. But St. Louis has a variety of sculptures that deserve observation.
We’ve rounded up 10 of our favorites. These are sculptures that are easily scoped out, from Laumeier Sculpture Park to the Old Courthouse. Two are the ubiquitous men on horses, but this time with decided twists. One is known more for fun than artistry. A couple aren’t necessarily the first sculptures that come to mind when thinking of St. Louis.
But take a drive to see these sculptures. (They’re all free to see.) Sometimes they commemorate important locations or bring art to an underserved area. Several help tell the history of St. Louis. And even if they just bring a smile, there’s nothing wrong with that.
The Way
Artist: Alexander Liberman
People are also reading…
Location: Laumeier Sculpture Park, 12580 Rott Road
One can’t help but be awed by The Way, almost certainly the biggest sculpture in St. Louis. Vivid red, made up of salvaged steel oil tanks, The Way was installed in 1980 in Laumeier Sculpture Park by artist Alexander Liberman.
It’s the centerpiece of Laumeier, surrounded by parkland that respects its heft with impressive sightlines. The park’s description says: “This monumental work dominates the field; its scale is, in part, meant to represent the awe-inspiring impact of classical Greek temples and mammoth Gothic-style cathedrals.â€
Over the decades, the sculpture has taken a beating from weather and, no doubt, some visitors. But the park recently spent more than $300,000 painting and restoring it. Although the 18 salvage oil tanks indicate decay, now, even more than when it was completed, humans have worked to maintain the 55-ton sculpture’s impact.
Liberman was born in 1912 in Kiev; the family immigrated to England when he was a boy and he was educated in England and France. In the 1940s, he became art director of Vogue, bringing more modern sensibilities to the magazine’s design. He left his mark on both consumer products and impressive visual art. By Jane Henderson
Kate Chopin
Artist: Jaye Gregory
Location: Writers Corner, Euclid and McPherson avenues
If The Way is St. Louis’ largest sculpture, some of its smallest outdoor pieces are found in the Central West End.
Focus here is on Kate Chopin, the earliest writer and perhaps less known than her corner companions: Tennessee Williams, T.S. Eliot and William Burroughs. In addition, Chopin’s bust, about a foot-and-a-half tall, is one of the relatively few public pieces by a woman sculptor, Jaye Gregory. Gregory taught at St. Louis Community College-Meramec and focused on the female form.
Chopin, nee O’Flaherty, was born in St. Louis in 1850 and died here, at 4234 McPherson Avenue. She had suffered a brain hemorrhage after a hot day at the World’s Fair in 1904.
Chopin’s novel “The Awakening†shocked many readers in 1899 when its married heroine had an affair with a fellow she didn’t love and ended her own life.
Chopin loved her own husband, but the mother of six was widowed at age 32 and wrote to help pay the bills. A strong personage, Chopin helped sell “The Awakening†by pushing the rumor that the scandalous book had been banned in St. Louis. It wasn’t; libraries here carried multiple copies of the book.
The Central West End has done well to remind visitors that Chopin, Williams, Eliot and Burroughs all had strong ties to St. Louis, even though several were happy to leave. Still, their lives here impacted all of the writers and their groundbreaking works. By Jane Henderson
Rumors of War
Artist: Kehinde Wiley
Location: Doorways, 1101 Jefferson Avenue
A man on a horse. If it’s not the most common sculpture in the world, it definitely is vying for the title. (Looking at you Apotheosis of St. Louis.) But artist Kehinde Wiley managed to reinvigorate the old saw with his sculpture Rumors of War. Modeled after a now-removed statue of Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart that stood in Richmond, Virginia, it features a young Black rider in a hoodie with ripped jeans and Nikes.
A bronze cast of the sculpture is now standing in front of Doorways, a nonprofit organization for people with HIV/AIDs who are also homeless or house insecure. The statue was installed in 2022 and is funded through the Gateway Foundation, which also created Citygarden. It was the foundation’s first art installation in north St. Louis.
The statue is small at 53 inches high and 64 inches wide, but it’s on a pedestal and is a prominent addition to an otherwise fairly bland stretch of Jefferson Avenue. Our rider turns to face us while his horse seems about to sprint forward. He raises his head and chest, inserting himself unapologetically into an art world that largely excluded him — and a history that did the same.
And you realize it’s not pride in his eyes, but defiance. By Rosalind Early
The Pillars of the Valley
Artist: Damon Davis
Location: CityPark at Market and 22nd streets
Back before there was CityPark stadium in downtown St. Louis, there was Mill Creek Valley, a Black neighborhood with about 20,000 residents. Like many Black neighborhoods across the U.S., it was torn down in the name of urban renewal back in the 1950s to make way for a highway.
US Highway 40 was built, but the rest of the urban renewal never materialized, and Mill Creek Valley was largely forgotten, but in creating its Brickline Greenway, a city-focused path, Great Rivers Greenway saw an opportunity to commemorate St. Louis history.
Damon Davis — the East St. Louis-artist who helped with Mirror Casket, which is in the Smithsonian — created The Pillars of the Valley a collection of sculptures that stands as a memorial and map of the once-bustling neighborhood.
The work consists of eight black pillars with hourglass shapes. Each has “sand†on top and stands where residents’ houses once stood. There are even house numbers in front of some of them. Each pillar is etched with a quote from a former resident about the neighborhood: “I just enjoyed it so much. It’s something I’ll never forget. And I look on that coming up as being, I would basically say, the best part of my life,†is one quote attributed to Floyd Robinson.
“I want people who are standing there to know that you’re in somebody’s house, and you should show respect,†Davis told the Post-Dispatch in 2023 when the piece was unveiled. “For the stadium to get there, those people had to get out.†By Rosalind Early
Man on a Horse
Artist: Fernando Botero
Location: Wydown Boulevard at South Hanley Road, Clayton
In Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s world, everyone is thicc. The artist, who died in 2023, didn’t go for fleshy Rubenesque curves, but for almost puffy figures that were sleek, smooth, balloon-like.
Such is the case for his statue Man on a Horse that has stood in Clayton along Hanley since 2015. The horse, in particular, is all curves, the only point on its body being the tips of its ears. It looks both like it is filled with air and could float away any minute, while also being massive. On top is a man, even bigger than the horse, naked, looking around. He seems confused by the small, angular world he finds himself in.
The heft of Botero’s figures remains much debated, with some saying it is a comment on our lives of excess and others saying it is a vindication of fatness, pointing out its beauty.
Botero never really clarified. But he did once say he doesn’t want his subjects to “look particularly intelligent.†(Really nailed it with Man on a Horse.) He also didn’t have his subjects look at the viewer, because “if you look at a person, you never really see the person, just the eyes.†So when Botero would paint someone, he would ask them to close their eyes. “Only then can I perceive the figure, the mass of forms, the volume.†By Rosalind Early
Laumeier Project
Artist: Jackie Ferrara
Location: Laumeier Sculpture Park, 12580 Rott Road
Another rare local sculpture by a woman is called Laumeier Project. It was the first site-specific sculpture commissioned specifically for Laumeier.
Jackie Ferrara, who grew up in Detroit, was fascinated by math and puzzles as a child. She became known for her architectural pieces in wood, and her 1981 Laumeier Project is made of cedar with zinc and metal. Somewhat hidden in woods, it can remind viewers of a Mayan temple in a Mexican jungle. Or maybe a pyramid shape made of toy logs.
The appealing geometric sculpture feels warmer than steel or other metal artworks because of its wood construction. But because the wood deteriorated after some 20 years, the park had to rebuild the sculpture with specifications from Ferrara.
She told the Smithsonian about the rebuild: “And they built it right next to the old one, which they eventually took away. But they were doing that to make sure they didn’t make mistakes.†By Jane Henderson
Looking Up
Artist: Tom Friedman
Location: St. Louis Science Center, 5050 Oakland Avenue
In front of the Science Center is a 33-foot-tall figure, his head tilted almost 90 degrees back to the sky.
The statue could not be more apropos. On one hand, it is man, looking up into the cosmos, his curiosity leading to groundbreaking discoveries in science, medicine, astronomy and more.
On the other hand, the statue looks like something otherworldly. Its long body and misshapen head, both of glistening silver, recall depictions of aliens from films.
He is the thing we wonder at: the inexplicable, the unreal, a reminder that there is more out there than we can explain or even conceive of. Maybe he’s looking at the cosmos to figure out how to get home.
The figure is part of a series, triangulated across the United States. One is permanently installed in Austin, Texas, at the Contemporary in a sculpture garden. The other has traveled to Chicago and New York, where it’s wondered at the skyscrapers around it.
Best of all, St. Louis-native Tom Friedman used crushed aluminum foil roasting trays to create the maquette for the statues. Though it’s made of stainless steel now, when you look close you can still see the outlines of the aluminum foil, a nod to the cliché hats that the most suspicious of us wear to protect ourselves from the unknown. By Rosalind Early
Dred and Harriet Scott
Artist: Harry Weber
Location: South lawn of the Old Courthouse, 11 North Fourth Street
The Dred and Harriet Scott statue won’t be the greatest statue you’ve ever seen. The faces are a little misshapen (look at it from the side, rather than full on), but the history it depicts makes it a must-see.
Dred Scott sued for freedom in St. Louis Circuit Court like hundreds of other slaves before the Civil War.
In fact, the hundreds of freedom suits in the city are commemorated outside of the Civil Courts Building (11th and Market streets), with Freedom Suits Memorial.
Missouri statute allowed anyone, white or Black, to sue for freedom from enslavement. Plus, the state had a “once free always free†law. If a slave resided in a territory or state where slavery was outlawed, then the person was free and was not a slave again even if he or she traveled back to a slave state.
Dred Scott had traveled with his slaver, John Emerson, to different free territories and states, which was the basis of his suit. The Scotts won their freedom on appeal in 1850, but that decision was overturned in the Missouri Supreme Court. When the Scotts appealed the decision to the federal level, the case became a political lightning rod.
In the end the U.S. Supreme Court also ruled against the Scotts and the decision became a precipitating event for the Civil War. All of that history is discussed inside the Old Courthouse, where all of Dred Scott’s cases were heard in Missouri, but it’s nice to have a reminder on the outside.
And Weber got a lot right with his bronze. Dred and Harriet hold each other’s hands and look into the horizon (poetically facing the Arch). He kept their size on a human scale, making them look fragile and small compared to the courthouse. Two people, buffeted about by history, they encapsulate the image from the poem “The New Colossus†of the tired and poor, “yearning to breathe free.†By Rosalind Early
Ìý
Turtle Park
Artist: Bob Cassilly
Location: Oakland and Tamm avenues
The concrete tortoises at Turtle Park are more playground than artwork. But that’s OK; what a fun feature they are for the city, opposite the St. Louis Zoo and a memorable site for family photos.
Opened in 1996, the park’s six turtles, some turtle eggs and a mouthy snake charm parents and kids — unless the parents’ hearts are pounding as their offspring climb the 40-foot snapper. Sculptor Bob Cassilly, renowned for City Museum, didn’t apparently believe in play spaces that were little more than padded rooms. There’s real risk in climbing some of these shelled critters, exactly what children crave.
Most sculptures aren’t meant to be touched, but like some in Citygarden, Turtle Park is a real child-pleaser. (A trip to Citygarden is also a fun way to help nurture future artists.)
The snapping turtle is accompanied by a soft-shelled turtle, a red-eared slider, a Mississippi map, three box turtles and a stinkpot turtle.
Sunny Glassberg, a St. Louis philanthropist, donated money for the park. She called the turtles “symbols of peace,†according to her 2013 obituary in the Post-Dispatch. Cassilly had died in 2011 in a bulldozer accident. By Jane Henderson
Joe
Artist: Richard Serra
Location: Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 3716 Washington Boulevard
Joe by Richard Serra is in an outdoor courtyard at the free Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Named for Joseph Pulitzer, husband of Emily Rauh Pulitzer, the spiral is an elegant sculpture made of Cor-Ten steel.
According to the Regional Arts Council, “Joe relies on human interaction to achieve its effect and thereby becomes a strange, disorienting environment.†That human interaction means people should and do walk the spiraling path. It was made specifically for the Pulitzer museum, which opened in 2001.
Serra’s other large sculpture in St. Louis is Twain, which was installed 20 years before Joe on a lot east of the Civil Courts building. “Serra designed the piece with the narrow eastern end pointing to the Mississippi River like the prow of a boat; the other end widens out in recognition of Western Expansion,†RAC says. It has probably been seen by thousands of people walking to and from Busch Stadium. But many viewers are likely to find Joe more graceful and intriguing. By Jane Henderson