Making Their Mark

KEMPER ART MUSEUM

September 12, 2025–January 5, 2026
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
St. Louis, MO

This fall, the Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis presents Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection. Spanning nearly eight decades and featuring nearly 70 artists, the survey places leading contemporary practitioners in dialogue with an earlier generation of artists whose work anticipated current discussions of figuration and abstraction as well as identity and power.

Curated by Curated by Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen Jr. Director and Chief Curator of High Line Art, and Sabine Eckmann, William T. Kemper Director and Chief Curator at the Kemper Art Museum, the exhibition is the first public presentation of this important collection, premiering in New York in 2023.

Making Their Mark juxtaposes contemporary practices with pathbreaking historical works to illuminate transgenerational affinities, influences, and methodologies among artists from the postwar era to the present. Featuring a wide spectrum of artworks spanning almost eight decades, the exhibition emphasizes dialogues between artists who circumvent and break through conventions in art-making, embracing craft techniques, uncommon supports, and alternative materials. Accompanied by a major publication produced in advance of the exhibition, Making Their Mark assembles significant examples by artists whose works go beyond prescribed definitions of art-making established within a historically patriarchal field.

Exhibiting Artists

Pacita Abad
Magdalena Abakanowicz
Etel Adnan
Emma Amos
Helène Aylon
Firelei Báez
Jennifer Bartlett
Lynda Benglis
Carol Bove
Andrea Bowers
Cecily Brown
Barbara Chase-Riboud
Judy Chicago
Melissa Cody
Mary Corse
OlgaDe Amaral
Aria Dean
Jadé Fadojutimi
Simone Fattal
Sonia Gomes
Katharina Grosse
Françoise Grossen
Trude Guermonprez
Harmony Hammond
Zarina Hashmi
Mary Heilmann
Sheila Hicks
Sheree Hovsepian
Jacqueline Humphries
Suzanne Jackson
Barbara Kasten
Jutta Koether
Maria Lassnig
Simone Leigh
Mary Lovelace O'Neal
Julie Mehretu 
Joan Mitchell
Elizabeth Murray
Wangechi Mutu
Senga Nengudi
Magdalene Odundo
Laura Owens
Helen Pashgian
Howardena Pindell
Faith Ringgold
Pinaree Sanpitak
Greta Schödl
Elizabeth Talford Scott
Joyce J. Scott
Judith Scott
Kay Sekimachi
Tschabalala Self
Joan Semmel
Amy Sillman
Lorna Simpson
Rose B. Simpson
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith
Janet Sobel
Pat Steir
Sarah Sze
Toshiko Takaezu
Lenore Tawney
Rosemarie Trockel
Uman
Charline Von Heyl
Kara Walker
Kay Walkingstick
Marie Watt
Mary Weatherford