Clark Art Institute

Top choice


Even if you're not an avid art lover, don't miss this gem, set on 140 gorgeous acres of expansive lawns, flower-filled meadows and rolling hills. The building – with its triple-tiered reflecting pool – is a stunner. The collections are particularly strong in the impressionists, with significant works by Monet, Pissarro and Renoir. Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent represent contemporaneous American painting.

Robert Sterling Clark (1877–1956), a Yale engineer whose family made a fortune in the sewing-machine industry, began collecting art in Paris in 1912. He and his wife eventually housed their impressive collection in Williamstown in a white marble temple built expressly for the purpose. 'The Clark,' as everyone in town calls it, is less than 1 mile south of the intersection of US 7 and MA 2.


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