INFORMATION AND WEBSITES
BRIDGEPORT
HOUSATONIC MUSEUM OF ART (Click for website)
900 Lafayette Blvd. Bridgeport, Ct. 06604
The Housatonic Museum of Art (HMA) is home to one of the premier college art collections in the United States. Its collection offers students and the community alike the opportunity to view works that span the history of art from the ancient to the contemporary. Unique to the Housatonic Community College campus, this permanent collection is on continuous display throughout the 300,000 square foot facility, offering a rare opportunity for both art enthusiasts and casual observers to view and interact with the art on a daily basis.
The Museum, founded by Burt Chernow, Professor Emeritus (1933-1997), is dedicated to the presentation, preservation and interpretation of objects of artistic or historic value. The collection provides a basis for exhibitions and educational programs for faculty, students and the public; for research and study by scholars, historians and curators, for special lectures and symposia, and for cultural and educational enrichment of the academic community and public-at-large. Under the direction of Robbin Zella, the Museum also presents lectures, programs and changing exhibitions in the Burt Chernow Galleries, and continues to be recognized as a major cultural resource for the Greater Bridgeport area and the region.
The Burt Chernow Galleries are open to the public. Admission is free. Exhibits change throughout the year. Please call 203-332-5203 for information.
You can contact the Director of the Housatonic Museum of Art, Robbin Zella, at 203-332-5052, office LH-B112.
FAIRFIELD
FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM (click for website)
1073 North Benson Rd. Fairfield, Ct 06824
203-254-4046
The Fairfield University Art Museum (FUAM) is a dynamic space for engagement with the visual arts on the campus of Fairfield University. In its Bellarmine Hall Galleries, FUAM presents its small but choice permanent collection of European and American paintings, drawings, prints and photographs, as well as Asian, African and Pre-Columbian objects. Objects on long-term loan include antiquities and medieval pieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Museum, the Worcester Art Museum, and the American Numismatic Society; Asian art on loan from the Columbia University Collection; and European paintings and objects borrowed from private collections. FUAM presents special exhibitions showcasing works of art in all media from a broad swathe of time periods and world cultures, ancient to contemporary, in both the Bellarmine Hall Galleries, and the Walsh Gallery in the Quick Center for the Arts. FUAM is an essential academic and cultural resource that brings original works of art to the Fairfield University community, and to the residents of Fairfield County and beyond by partnering with local schools and cultural institutions, and by serving all audiences through outreach, free admission and free events.
FARMINGTON
HILL-STEAD MUSEUM (click for website)
35 Mountain Rd. Farmington, Ct 06032
Hill-Stead is the first architectural project of Theodate Pope Riddle (1867-1946), fourth registered female architect in the country, early proponent of historic preservation and caretaker of the family art collection. Designed as a country home for Theodate’s parents, Alfred and Ada Pope, the 33,000 square foot, 1901 Colonial Revival mansion has welcomed over 1 million visitors since opening to the public. Hill-Stead is considered “perhaps the finest Colonial Revival house and museum in the United States” (National Historic Landmark Report) and houses some of the most important Impressionist paintings in the world, including works by Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, and James McNeill Whistler. A print collection spanning 400 years and including pieces by Albrecht Dürer, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Jean-François Millet and Japanese woodblock artists Hokusai, Hiroshige and Utamaro rounds out the collection. Established in 1946 as a cultural resource for the public in perpetuity, the museum is one of the nation’s few remaining representations of early-20th-century Country Place Estates.
Each year Hill-Stead Museum utilizes its historic home, landmark art exhibit, and 152-acre estate to offer over 4,000 tours and an array of programs in art, architecture, gardens, and natural science. In keeping with the Pope family’s tradition of bringing literary, musical, and educational opportunities to the community, the museum presents concerts, lectures, workshops, family festivals, and the nationally acclaimed Sunken Garden Poetry Festival. With its in situ furnishings and collection, the museum offers a unique glimpse into the lifestyle of a well-to-do family at the turn of the 20th century and becomes a well-rounded cultural experience, more than just a day at a museum.
GREENWICH
THE BRANT FOUNDATION ART STUDY CENTER (click for website)
941 North Street, Greenwich, Ct 06831
203-869-0611
The Brant Foundation has a mission to promote education and appreciation of contemporary art and design, by making works available to institutions and individuals for scholarly study and examination.
The Brant Foundation’s loan program, established in 1996, plays a crucial role in our mission to promote education and appreciation of contemporary art. The Foundation’s lending program increases public accessibility to the collection’s paramount pieces – broadening visibility to contemporary works critical to the history of art and its scholarship. Each year, the Foundation lends artwork to exhibiting venues worldwide, proudly supporting artists and art institutions around the globe. Please contact Allison Brant for more information about our loan program.
Additionally, The Brant Foundation offers a multitude of ongoing programs and events aimed to enhance and enrich the public’s experience with contemporary art. These programs are designed to facilitate art education, foster creative and scholarly development, and provide unique opportunities for anyone with an interest in contemporary art.
HARTFORD
WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART (click for website)
600 Main St., Hartford, Ct 06103
Founded in 1842 with a vision for infusing art into the American experience, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is home to a collection of nearly 50,000 works of art, spanning 5,000 years and encompassing European art from antiquity to contemporary as well as American art from the 1600s through today. The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is the oldest continuously-operating public art museum in the United States, opening its doors to the public in 1844.
The Wadsworth Atheneum has paved the way for encyclopedic museums across the country, presenting engaging and groundbreaking exhibitions that explore every era of art history while consistently being at the forefront of collecting works by artists such as Caravaggio, Frederic Church, Joseph Cornell, Salvador Dalí, and Joan Miró. Today, visitors to the downtown Hartford, Connecticut galleries find captivating and innovative programs mining the iconic holdings and offering new stories that illustrate the breadth and quality of the collection.
MANSFIELD
245 Glenbrook Rd. Storrs, Ct. 06269
860-486-4520
The William Benton Museum of Art is Connecticut’s State art museum, located on the University of Connecticut campus at Storrs. Drawing largely from its collection of over 6,500 works of art, the Museum presents exhibitions of art dating from the 15th through the 21st centuries. The museum also creates special exhibitions drawn from outside sources as well as loaned exhibitions. Special events include gallery talks, campus art walks, academic and non-academic discussions, musical performances, and family programs.
The William Benton Museum of Art, The University of Connecticut, has been established for the collection, preservation, research, and interpretation of works of art. The Museum exists for the University of Connecticut academic community, for the citizens of the State of Connecticut, and for the general public to add through its educational and other programs to the greater understanding and appreciation of art
MYSTIC
MYSTIC MUSEUM OF ART (click for website)
9 Water St, Mystic, Ct 06355
860-536-7601
The mission of Mystic Museum of Art is to inspire creativity and critical dialogue by engaging the regional community in the understanding, appreciation and practice of visual art.
To fulfill this mission we will:
- Operate and maintain galleries and studios to support exhibitions and broad based arts education programs.
- Maintain an art museum and permanent collection of works by important regional artists.
- Provide an understanding of the role of the arts in the enrichment of community life and cultural heritage.
- Be dedicated to standards of excellence.
Mystic Museum of Art, a part of the Connecticut art scene for 100 years, is a place where culture, tradition, and the charm of small town New England converge. Founded in 1913 by a group of prominent artists rooted in the philosophy of the 19th century French landscape painters, Mystic Museum of Art today serves as an arts and culture center for southeastern Connecticut. Key figures in MMoA’s early history include Charles H. Davis, founder of the Mystic Art Colony, and Henry Ward Ranger, who founded the art colony at Old Lyme but later moved to Noank village, one town over from Mystic, and began exhibiting at Mystic Museum of Art.
To support its mission as an educational, non-profit organization, open to all, Mystic Museum of Art maintains a historically significant gallery built in 1931 on Water Street, one block from downtown Mystic. Located on the west bank of the scenic Mystic River, the air conditioned gallery operates as an education center for the arts and is the only public green space in downtown Mystic on the Groton side of Mystic River. The museum houses four art galleries, state of the art studio space, classrooms, and an art reference library. The property includes access to the waterfront and an ample parking facility. In addition, the gallery, education center, parking lot, and terraces are fully accessible for disabled patrons.
Mystic Museum of Art’s comprehensive education program offers classes for both children and adults and provides educational outreach programs to regional schools including Groton, Stonington, New London and Norwich. In 2016, the Museum provided on-site and outreach education programs to about 3,800 area students
NEW BRITAIN
NEW BRITAIN MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART (click for website)
56 Lexington St. New Britain,Ct 06052
860-229-0257
The NBMAA collection represents the major artists and movements of American art. Today it numbers about 8,274 paintings, works on paper, sculptures, and photographs, including the Sanford B.D. Low Illustration Collection, which features important works by illustrators such as Norman Rockwell, Howard Pyle, and Maxfield Parrish.
Among collection highlights are colonial and federal portraits, with examples by John Smibert, John Trumbull, John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, and the Peale family. The Hudson River School features landscapes by Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Martin Johnson Heade, John Kensett, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Church. Still life painters range from Raphaelle Peale, Severin Roesen, William Harnett, John Peto, John Haberle, and John La Farge. American genre painting is represented by John Quidor, William Sidney Mount, and Lilly Martin Spencer. Post-Civil War examples include works by Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, George de Forest Brush, and William Paxton, and 19 plasters and bronzes by Solon Borglum. American Impressionists include Mary Cassatt, Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, Willard Metcalf, and Childe Hassam, the last represented by eleven oils. Later Impressionist paintings include those by Ernest Lawson, Frederck Frieseke, Louis Ritman, Robert Miller, and Maurice Prendergast.
Other strengths of the twentieth-century collection include: sixty works by members of the Ash Can School; significant representation by early modernists such as Alfred Maurer, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Max Weber; important examples by the Precisionists Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, Preston Dickinson, and Ralston Crawford; a broad spectrum of work by the Social Realists Ben Shahn, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Jack Levine; and ambitious examples of Regionalist painting by Grant Wood, John Steuart Curry, and Thomas Hart Benton, notably the latter’s celebrated five-panel mural, The Arts of Life in America (1932).
Works by the American Abstract Artist group (Stuart Davis, Ilya Bolotowsky, Esphyr Slobodkina, Balcomb Greene, and Milton Avery) give twentieth-century abstraction its place in the collection, as do later examples of Surrealism by artists Kay Sage and George Tooker; Abstract Expressionism (Lee Krasner, Giorgio Cavallon, Morris Graves, Robert Motherwell, Sam Francis, Cleve Gray), Pop and Op art (Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers, Robert Indiana, Tom Wesselman, Jim Dine), Conceptual (Christo, Sol LeWitt), and Photo-Realism (Robert Cottingham). Examples of twentieth-century sculpture include Harriet Frishmuth, Paul Manship, Isamu Noguchi, George Segal, and Stephen DeStaebler. We continue to acquire contemporary works by notable artists, in order to best represent the dynamic.
NEW HAVEN
YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY (click for website)
1111 Chapel St., New Haven, Ct
The mission of the Yale University Art Gallery is to encourage appreciation and understanding of art and its role in society through direct engagement with original works of art. The Gallery stimulates active learning about art and the creative process through research, teaching, and dialogue among communities of Yale students, faculty, artists, scholars, alumni, and the wider public. The Gallery organizes exhibitions and educational programs to offer enjoyment and encourage inquiry, while building and maintaining its collections in trust for future generations.
NEW CANAAN
PHILIP JOHNSON GLASS HOUSE (click for website)
199 Elm St. New Canaan Ct 06840
203-594-9888
The Philip Johnson Glass House, built between 1949 and 1995 by architect Philip Johnson, is a National Trust Historic Site located in New Canaan, Connecticut. The pastoral 49-acre landscape comprises fourteen structures, including the Glass House (1949), and features a permanent collection of 20th-century painting and sculpture, along with temporary exhibitions. Tours of the site are available in May through November and advance reservations are recommended.
NEW LONDON
LYMAN ALLYN ART MUSEUM Click for website)
625 William St., New London, Ct 06320
860-443-2545
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum welcomes visitors from New London, Southeastern Connecticut and from all over the world. Established by a gift from Harriet Allyn in memory of her seafaring father, the museum opened the doors of its beautiful neo-classical building in 1932. Today it houses a fascinating collection of over 17,000 objects from ancient times to the present; artworks from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe, with particularly strong collections of American paintings, decorative arts, and Victorian toys and doll houses.
Complementing the eye-opening American Perspectives galleries, which display works drawn from the permanent collection, and the recently installed Louis Comfort Tiffany in New London exhibition, which explores the rich and varied work of artist, craftsman, and designer, Louis Comfort Tiffany, the Lyman Allyn presents a number of changing exhibitions each year. These special shows highlight creativity in its fullest definition – encouraging visitors to experience the pleasures of art through many lenses of discovery, history, social, and cultural phenomenon with focus on the character and strengths of Southeastern Connecticut. Throughout each year, the Lyman Allyn Art Museum offers special programming including exhibition openings, lectures, educational opportunities, and musical events for families and the general public.
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum is particularly proud of its commitment to provide art education and cultural enrichment to the youth of our region, with approximately 4,000 school children visiting the Museum each year. The Lyman Allyn collaborates with New London and southeastern Connecticut school systems to design art programs based on specific curriculum needs for students in grades pre-K through 12. The Lyman Allyn’s educational services also include special vacation and summer day camp programs for area children.
With reduced school budgets impacting the opportunity for children to participate in art education programs, the Lyman Allyn Art Museum underwrites the cost of field trip transportation, admission, and hands-on art projects through our “Yellow Bus Fund,” the result of years of support from generous donors and sponsoring organizations. Full subsidies are available for New London schools, and partial subsidies are available for other school districts. The Lyman Allyn is committed to providing its education program to all children, regardless of their particular circumstances, so they can enjoy the rich resources of the museum, experience cultural activities in their many dimensions, and develop an appreciation for the visual arts.
NORWICH
SLATER MEMORIAL MUSEUM AND CONVERSE ART GALLERY (click for website)
108 Crescent St. Norwich Ct 06360
860-425-5563
Located on the campus of Norwich Free Academy, the Slater Museum awakens visitors to the richness and diversity of the human experience through art and history. For more than one hundred years, the Museum has displayed and interpreted the best examples of fine and decorative art, representing a broad range of world cultures of the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa. Over the course of more than a century, the museum has remained true to its mission as an educational resource for the Academy and the community. Successors continued to enlarge and improve the collections through purchases and donations. Its space was expanded in 1906 through a gift from Charles A. Converse for the addition of a new building with a large, airy gallery, making changing exhibits more feasible. The Slater Memorial Museum’s relationship with the Norwich Art School has, over the years, maximized the Norwich Free Academy’s ability to train young artists for professional study, while contributing to the cultural life of the greater community