Displaying items by tag: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

Thomas Krens, who once directed the Guggenheim Museum in New York and its overseas satellites, on Saturday joined with the former Massachusetts governors William Weld and Michael Dukakis to announce an ambitious plan to establish a “cultural corridor” between North Adams and Williamstown, Mass.

The project, intended to draw more visitors to the northern Berkshires and to help the economy of North Adams in particular, would include a new contemporary art museum, the renovation of a 1938 movie palace and the building of what Mr. Krens calls a museum for “extreme model railroading and contemporary architecture,” all in or near North Adams.

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute of Williamstown, Mass., will be unveiling a new loan at 1 p.m. this Friday, April 17: Albert Bierstadt’s “Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast,” recently arrived from the Seattle Art Museum.

The famed romantic painting is a temporary visitor in New England thanks to a friendly football wager back in January, when the two museums bet that their respective home team would the Super Bowl. Had the Seahawks beaten the Patriots, the Clark would have shipped off Winslow Homer’s “West Point, Prout’s Neck” for a visit to Seattle.

For years the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, with its magnificent collection of 19th century art (among other goodies) has felt like a bastion against the world outside its gates, a step back in time to the glories of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and the French Impressionists. (After that it was no Modernists need apply for the ultraconservative Mr. Clark.)

The thoroughly modern new museum isn’t a refutation of the old one, though. The architects don’t drag it kicking and screaming into the 21st century, even if not everyone wants to come along. It’s way too Zen for any such temperamental demonstrations.

A world-class art museum tucked among the hills of Western Massachusetts: That’s the ambitious goal of the new Clark Institute.

To give it its full proper name, it’s the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. The Clark has been around since 1955, but you’d have to say it’s being truly reborn in 2014.

The new Clark has been so radically revamped and enlarged that it feels like an entirely new place. It has grown by almost 100,000 square feet of space, and most of its old space has been or is being renovated. Once isolated and inward-looking, the Clark now reaches out like a new guest at the party to become an integral part of the great landscape of the Berkshires. After 14 years of planning, designing, and building, it’s set for its grand reopening on July 4.

A selection of French Impressionist paintings from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA are currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. ‘The Age of Impressionism: Great French Paintings from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute’ presents 73 works by artists such as Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and Jean-Francois Millet.

The Clark launched its collection tour, which coincided with a three-year expansion of the museum, in 2011. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is the second venue in the U.S. to host the exhibition. In total, the show has been seen by more than 1.6 million people around the world.

The works on view span 70 years and include portraits, landscapes, marines, scenes of everyday life and still lifes. ‘The Age of Impressionism’ will be on view in Houston through March 23, 2014.

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA will unveil its updated, 140-acre campus on July 4, 2014. The museum’s decade-long expansion plan is the most significant transformation the institution has undergone since opening in 1955.

The renovations were spearheaded by three different architects -- Japan’s Tadao Ando Architects designed the new, 44,000-square-foot Visitor Center; New York’s Selldorf Architects transformed the original Museum Building as well as the Manton Research Center; and Massachusetts-based firm, Reed Hilderband, updated the Clark’s landscape and added a dramatic, one-acre reflecting pool. The renovation added over 16,000-square-feet of gallery space to the museum, allowing the Clark to exhibit more of its remarkable collection, which includes Old Master paintings, Impressionist masterpieces, and fine British and American silver.

When the Clark reopens this summer, the museum will present four inaugural exhibitions and the reinstallation of its collections. The exhibitions include ‘Make It New: Abstract Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, 1950–1975,’ ‘Cast for Eternity: Ancient Ritual Bronzes from the Shanghai Museum,’ ‘Raw Color: The Circles of David Smith,’ and ‘Photography and Discovery.’

The Sterling and Francine Clark Institute in Williamstown, MA recently received its most considerable gift of American paintings since its founding in 1955 and is holding an exhibition to celebrate the major acquisition. George Inness: Gifts from Frank and Katherine Martucci presents eight landscapes by the influential American painter George Inness (1825-1894) dating from 1880 to 1894. The works will appear alongside two Inness paintings collected by the Clarks themselves. The show will highlight Inness’ later work when he moved away from his signature plein-air style towards a more conceptual aesthetic that relied on the use of light and shadow.

The Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg significantly influenced Inness and inspired the artist to look at nature through a more spiritual lens. Inness moved away from straightforward depictions of the natural world towards a style that blended realism with a sense of otherworldliness. Inness achieved this through color, composition and painterly techniques that involved the gentle blurring of natural forms.

Highlights from the exhibition include Sunrise in the Woods, The Road to the Village, and Green Landscape. George Inness: Gifts from Frank and Katherine Martucci will be on view through September 8, 2013.

Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History is currently on view at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. The exhibition presents the most comprehensive collection of Winslow Homer’s (1836-1910) works assembled by a single person since the American landscape painter’s death and one of the finest collections in any museum in the U.S. The first complete catalogue of the Clark’s Homer collection, which was authored by Marc Simpson, the show’s curator and a renowned Homer scholar, complements the exhibition.

Sterling Clark began collecting artworks by Homer in 1915 while living in Paris. He maintained a steady fascination with the artist throughout his collecting career, which eventually led to Clark’s acquisition of more than 250 works by Homer dating from 1857 to 1904. Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History will feature Clark’s entire collection including 60 oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and etchings, 120 rarely seen wood engravings, and a selection of loaned works.

Highlights from the exhibition include Undertow (1886) along with six preparatory drawings for the painting, the well-known painting Two Guides (1877), and a selection of watercolors that are rarely shown.

Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History will be on view at the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute of Art through September 8, 2013.

The Sterling and Francine Clark Institute in Williamstown, MA received its largest gift to date from New York-based collectors Frank Martucci, and his wife, Katherine. The Martuccis donated an impressive collection of works including eight landscapes by the 19^th-century American painter George Inness (1825-1894).

The gift is extremely beneficial for the Clark, which focuses on collecting certain artists in depth; the museum currently boasts impressive collections of works by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), Winslow Homer (1836-1910), and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). The Martuccis’ donation strengthens the Clark’s Inness holdings as they had only two paintings by the artist in their collection, which were acquired in 1955. The Martuccis also donated oil paintings by Eastman Johnson (1824-1906) and Gaston Latouche (1854-1913), an early watercolor landscape by Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), and five works by the Italian genre painter Mose Bianchi (1840-1904).

The new Inness landscapes will be featured in the exhibition George Inness: Gifts from Frank and Katherine Martucci from June 9 through September 8, 2013; the show will run concurrently with a major exhibition of paintings, watercolors, and prints by Winslow Homer.

Seven works by the renowned Italian painter Piero della Francesca (1411/13-1492) are currently on view at the Frick Collection in New York. Piero della Francesca in America is the first monographic exhibition in the United States to focus on Piero, one of the founding figures of the Italian Renaissance.

Among the seven works on view at the Frick are six panels from the Sant’Agostino altarpiece (1454-69), a work commissioned for the Church of St. Agostino in Piero’s native Borgo San Sepolcro. Soon after the altarpiece was completed, it was dismantled, removed from the church, and the panels dispersed. Eight panels survive to this day including the four belonging to the Frick, three more, which are housed in European museums, and another belonging to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

The Frick’s reunion of the six panels is the largest reassembly from Piero’s masterpiece ever to appear on display. The panels are accompanied by the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels (circa 1460-70), the only intact altarpiece by Piero in the United States. Acquired by Sterling Clark (1877-1956), the heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune and an avid art collector in 1913, the work is now part of the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute’s collection in Williamstown, MA.  

The exhibition, which is on view in the Frick’s oval room, is accompanied by a number of lectures, gallery talks, and seminars. Piero della Francesca in America will be on view through May 19, 2013.