Fine Arts Drive In Front Of Art Museum To Close For Two Months

ST. LOUIS, MO — Fine Arts Drive in front of the Saint Louis Art Museum will close Monday for two months for road improvements, museum officials said Friday.

The museum and Art Hill parking lots will remain open, but the museum's garage will only be accessible from the direction of the zoo. Fine Arts Drive should reopen by early December.

A sculpture by Richard Serra will also be installed in the asphalt between the museum and the Apotheosis of St. Louis statue while work to replace the roadbed and improve storm water drainage is underway.

"The sculpture consists of large circular forms embedded eight inches in the ground, viable from above though barely apparent at street level," the museum said in a news release. "Serra meant for this work to be driven and walked over, rather than simply observed. Serra's first public artwork in the United States, the sculpture was originally installed in a street in the Bronx, New York, from 1970 to 1972..."

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Officials say when the project is completed, the street will be safer for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, as well as being a work of art. The project was approved by the Forest Park Advisory Board, St. Louis Preservation Board, and city government. It is being funded by a gift from Emily Rauh Pulitzer.

Photo: A statue of St. Louis' namesake, Louis IX of France, which stands across from the Saint Louis Art Museum on Fine Arts Drive. (J. Ryne Danielson/Patch)