Skip to main content

Whether you are at the Museum, home, or planning your next visit, audio guides provide a variety of voices from artists, curators, and community members speaking about the Museum’s global collection and exhibitions.

Additional Platforms and Features

You can always listen to audio guides on our website, but we also provide additional platforms with unique features.

Bloomberg Connects

Connect with SLAM and local museums, Contemporary Art Museum and Pulitzer Art Foundation. Features include downloads for offline access, an interactive map, and guides to over 250 cultural institutions.

Download Bloomberg Connects

Smartify

Discover a global art database with over 2 million objects, augmented reality experiments, and create a personal collection.

Download Smartify

Recent Exhibition Guides

Matisse and the Sea

The exhibition audio guide examines the significance of the sea across French modernist artist Henri Matisse’s career. Listen to the Director’s welcome, curator Simon Kelly, art historians, wildlife veterinarian, and conservation biologist.

Black and white photograph of Henri Matisse in front of a palm tree and the ocean.
Matisse in Tahiti (detail), 1930; Archives Henri Matisse, all rights reserved; Photo: F. W. Murnau

Shimmering Silks: Traditional Japanese Textiles, 18th–19th Centuries

This exhibition audio guide celebrates silk pieces from the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, which has been collecting fine Japanese textiles for more than a century.

Japanese; Wrapping Cloth (fukusa), c.1769; silk; 31 1/4 x 25 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Purchase 111:1919

Featured Collection Guide

Harris-Stowe State University Speaks

This audio guide features student voices connecting their interpretation of art from the Museum’s collection and themes recognized in hip hop.

Three people visiting an art exhibition are looking around, with one person pointing at something outside the bounds of the photograph composition.

Max Beckmann

The Saint Louis Art Museum has the world’s largest collection of paintings and prints by Max Beckmann. This guide features a selection of works introducing the artist’s captivating art and eventful life.

Max Beckmann, German, 1884–1950; Sinking of the Titanic, 1912–1913; oil on canvas; 104 1/4 x 130 inches, framed: 109 11/16 x 135 7/16 x 4 7/16 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Morton D. May 840:1983

Animals in Art

We invited guest experts to share their knowledge and experiences to broaden our understanding of animal behavior and why artists would choose to represent particular animals. This guide is intended for visitors of all ages.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, German (active Switzerland), 1880–1938; Circus Rider (recto), 1914; oil on canvas; 79 x 59 7/16 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Morton D. May 904:1983

Power of Place

This audio guide celebrates arts of the African diaspora, featuring diverse Black, African, and African American people, artists, and cultures.

Museum visitor uses mobile device in front of Fading Cloth by El Anatsui.
El Anatsui, Ghanaian, born 1944; Fading Cloth (detail), 2005; metal bottle tops and copper wire; dimensions variable according to installation: 126 inches x 21 feet; Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Minority Artists Purchase Fund, funds given by the Third Wednesday Group, Director's Discretionary Fund, and funds given by the Saint Louis Art Museum Docent Class of 2006 in honor of Stephanie Sigala 10:2007; © El Anatsui, Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York