Arts & Culture

Artists have been leaving their imprint on Columbia since the first settlers rolled into the region. Here in this creative city, you’ll find historical masterpieces and fresh contemporary works. You’d expect to find amazing art in local galleries—and you won’t be disappointed—but in Columbia, art also enhances the town’s public spaces.

Ginger Rogers was born as Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence in 1911, and she spent her early years in Independence and Kansas City. Ginger is best remembered for movies made with dancing partner Fred Astaire. She is famously credited for doing everything Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels.

Today, gifts and stationery created by this Fulton-based company appear on the shelves of fine boutiques nationwide and at major retailers including Anthropologie and Paper Source.

World-class culture...In Columbia? You bet! Columbians know what visitors discover, that they have access to high culture right in mid-Missouri.

At just 23, St. Louis-based singer/songwriter, upright bassist, and poet Tonina Saputo has accomplished more than many artists twice her age. As a high school student, she performed with her school’s symphonic orchestra at both Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City.

Local productions and traveling shows bring the iconic ballet to appreciative audiences here in Missouri. For professional ballet companies, The Nutcracker is often the most popular show of the season.

An independently owned bookstore is like a friend: it has its own personality that makes you love to spend time there. Despite the draw of web-based super sellers, indie bookstores are surviving.

The atmosphere was the perfect fit for the vision Holly and Bradley had for an independent movie theater in Joplin. On April 13, they opened Bookhouse Cinema at 715 East Broadway. The theater exhibits film series based on classic masterpieces and runs special features highlighting the Cranes’ favorite directors.

Every season is festival season in Columbia. Entertaining events fill the calendar, much to the delight of locals and the thousands of visitors who come to take in fine art, delectable food, good books, historic attractions, inspiring music, and extraordinary films.

Opened in October 2015, the Jefferson City Museum of Modern Art features the works of Purvis Young, Thornton Dial, and Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, better known as Aboudia. All have earned national and international acclaim for their art, which can be found in some of the country’s most distinguished museums.