Governance and Public Meeting Notices

This summer, as the nation grappled with issues of racial inequities and injustice, the Saint Louis Art Museum’s Board of Commissioners recognized that the institution it leads faced a foundational challenge. Throughout its history, the Museum has sought to provide a place of refuge during historic times, where visitors can find inspiration, solace, and delight among the highest artistic achievements of humankind. In striving to achieve this ideal, too often we have failed to ask ourselves what more we can do to heal the social wounds outside our walls, especially in our community, where the Museum occupies a special place in the heart of St. Louis’s cultural life and at its geographic center.

Recognizing its governance obligation to our Museum and our community, on June 15 the Board of Commissioners asked its president, vice president, and secretary to examine what the Museum is doing to promote diversity and inclusion, and engaged our director to help this Study Group determine what more could be done. In addition to Museum leadership and staff, the Study Group also sought the opinions of many board members and others in the St. Louis community and in the museum field. As we advanced our work, we were impressed with the important work carried out every day at the Museum. We recognize the staff’s longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion, including recent steps to diversify programming, staffing, exhibitions, and collecting, and to increase minority participation in the Museum and the museum field.

Nonetheless, everyone involved in this process believes more can be done. On August 31, the Study Group presented our report and recommendations to the Board of Commissioners, which unanimously voted to undertake the next steps of an important and continuing process to create a culture and model of diversity, equity, access, and inclusion.

Great institutions are guided by their mission statements, which inform us why they exist and provide the underpinning for every significant action they take. While we think organizations should not alter or amend their mission statements lightly, we believe the Museum’s commitment to diversity should be called out as a bedrock principle that will guide the institution through this transformation and long into the future. The Board of Commissioners has added the italicized language to the Museum’s mission statement:

The Saint Louis Art Museum collects, presents, interprets, and conserves works of art of the highest quality across time and cultures; educates, inspires discovery, and elevates the human spirit; preserves a legacy of artistic achievement for the people of St. Louis and the world; and engages, includes, and represents the full diversity of the St. Louis community supporting it.

In addition to our mission statement, the experience of art in our galleries is built on a set of fundamental values that reflect what is important to the Museum and guide its day-to-day work. These values—Art, Stewardship, Authenticity, Hospitality, and Excellence—have promoted generational strength and continuity. Yet, in this historic moment, we found these values to be incomplete. To address this, the Board of Commissioners added a new value:

Inclusion—We value the support we receive from the taxpayers of the St. Louis City and County and our donors, and our status as a public museum and part of the greater St. Louis Community. Throughout all we collect and show, and all we do, we reflect our respect for the rich diversity of that Community, the necessary equity born of that respect, and the inclusion of and engagement with all members of that Community.

The Commission also added strong policies relating to the art collection and its display, and to increasing the diversity of the Museum’s staff and governing board.

The Commission has highlighted 140 actions and policies in its Diversity Report where it is directing consideration by the Museum and its boards in light of our updated mission statement and existing and added values focusing on diversity and inclusion. These actions and policies were developed during the Study Group’s three-month discovery process, which included one-on-one and small-group discussions with board members, staff, alumni of the Romare Bearden Fellowship, museum professionals, and community members, as well as a staff survey. They were also informed by the extensive literature examining the role of a general art museum in helping a community grapple with the issues now facing St. Louis and the country.

The Commission has created a new Diversity Committee to oversee the consideration, prioritization, and as appropriate, implementation of those actions and policies set out in the report and any others informed by the Museum’s mission statement and values. This standing committee is comprised of the presidents of the Museum’s three boards, several board officers and committee chairs, and other commissioners and trustees. Moving forward, it will work with the board and staff and report quarterly to the Board of Commissioners. The first phase of this long-term effort will focus on the Black and African American communities; the Museum then will expand its diversity and inclusion scope to other minority communities that are either underrepresented or have not been fully included.

With the goals and values and process in place, the Commission will expect substantial progress in considering and reporting all matters covered in the Diversity Report over the next 12 months. Some of that consideration has already begun, and much more should be completed before the end of 2020. The Diversity Committee expects to hold its first meeting in September or early October, and the Museum director has already begun to design a framework for staff consideration.

The Diversity Report and the actions taken by the Commission serve as a framework for decisions the board and Museum leadership will make to address diversity, access, equity, and inclusion holistically across all Museum governance and operations. The Board of Commissioners is ultimately accountable for the implementation of policies and initiatives that emanate from this process. We hope that its success will be measured not by its words, but by its actions.

Charles A. Lowenhaupt
President, Board of Commissioners

John M. Horseman
Co-Vice President, Board of Commissioners

David Obedin

Co-Vice President, Board of Commissioners

Adrienne D. Davis
Secretary, Board of Commissioners

Min Jung Kim,
The Barbara B. Taylor Director of the Saint Louis Art Museum