Gallery sights in New England
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MassArt
More formally known as the Massachusetts College of Art, this is the country’s first and only four-year independent public art college. In 1873 state leaders decided the new textile mills in Lowell and Lawrence needed a steady stream of designers, so they established MassArt to educate some. The South Building houses over 9000 sq ft of exhibit space in the Arnheim, Bakalar and Paine galleries, while the Tower also houses the President’s Gallery. There’s always some thought-provoking or sense-stimulating exhibits to see.
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ICA
Boston is poised to become a focal point for contemporary art, with the highly touted opening of the new Institute of Contemporary Artsin its dramatic new quarters. The building is a work of art in itself – a striking glass structure cantilevered over a waterside plaza. The spacious light-filled interior allows for multimedia presentations, educational programs and studio space. More importantly, it provides the venue for the development of the ICA’s permanent collection of 21st-century art.
Several galleries are dedicated to the growing permanent collection and the ongoing Momentum series, while others rotate, showcasing national and international artists working in …
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Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute
The Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute is a gem among US art museums. Even if you’re not an avid art lover, don’t miss it. Robert Sterling Clark (1877–1956), a Yale engineer whose family had made money in the sewing machine industry, began collecting art in Paris in 1912. He and his wife eventually housed their wonderful collection in Williamstown in a white marble temple built expressly for the purpose. The collections are particularly strong in the Impressionists. Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent represent contemporary American painting. From earlier centuries, there are excellent works by Hans Memling, Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Francisco de Goya…
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Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
Perhaps the top art school in the United States, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) leaves an imprint on Providence that is easily felt. From public statuary to film performances to indecipherable screen-printed flyers stapled to College Hill telephone poles, creativity oozes palatably from it across the small cityscape.
Though some experience the pleasure of RISD by putting together portfolios that will eventually be rejected by the admissions committee, others earn style points simply by visiting the school's many galleries.
A few times a year (several weeks in May and shortly before Christmas), RISD hosts massive art shows where you can buy paintings, ceramics, househ…
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List Visual Arts Center
The stated goal of the List Center is to explore the boundaries of artistic inquiry – to use art to ask questions, not only about aesthetics, but also about culture, society and of course science. Rotating exhibits push the contemporary art envelope in painting, sculpture, photography, video and just about every other medium imaginable. This is also where you can pick up a map of MIT’s public art, proof enough that this university supports artistic as well as technological innovation. The university’s progressive Percent-for-Art program requires that a certain percentage of every new building and renovation project be earmarked for art acquisitions. If you want a professi…
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Williams College Museum of Art
The Clark Art Institute’s sister museum is the excellent Williams College Museum of Art. Around half of its 12,000 pieces comprise the American Collection, with substantial works by notables such as Edward Hopper (Morning in a City), Winslow Homer and Grant Wood, to name only a few. The photography collection is equally strong, with representation by Diane Arbus, Man Ray and Alfred Stieglitz. The pieces representing ancient and medieval cultures are less numerous but equally distinguished. The museum also hosts traveling exhibits and stages its own shows with works from community and regional artists. To find the museum, look for the huge bronze eyes embedded in the fro…
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St Johnsbury Athenaeum
Home to the country’s oldest art gallery still in its original form, the Athenaeum was founded in 1871 when Horace Fairbanks gave the town a library. Comprising some 9000 finely bound books of classic world literature, the library was soon complemented by the gallery, built around its crown jewel, Albert Bierstadt’s 10ft-by-15ft painting, Domes of the Yosemite. The rest of the collection consists of works by such Hudson River School painters as Asher B Durand, Worthington Whittredge and Jasper Crospey as well as dozens of copies of old masters. Bierstadt is said to have returned to the gallery every summer until his death to touch up his masterpiece.
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Motif No 1
Dock Sq is the hub of Rockport. Visible from here, the red fishing shack decorated with colorful buoys is known as Motif No 1. So many artists of great and minimal talent have been painting and photographing it for so long that it well deserves its tongue-in-cheek name. Actually, it should be called Motif No 1-B, as the original shack vanished during a great storm in 1978 and a brand-new replica was erected in its place.
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Bryan Gallery
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Axiom
You know this place is going to be cool and cutting edge, by virtue of the fact that it is attached to the T station. Indeed, the contemporary glass and steel space is unique in Boston for its dedication to exhibiting artists who are working in the ‘new media.’ Blurring the line between technology and artistry, the exhibits explore ways to use video, audio and other unexpected media to look at the world. At the time of research, Axiom was hosting the first annual one-minute film festival.
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Thorne Sagendorph Art Gallery
The Thorne Sagendorph Art Gallery housed at Keene State College plays a crucial role in supporting the arts in this rural region. Its spacious skylit halls showcase rotating exhibits of regional and national artists. Sagendorph hosts an annual exhibit focusing on New Hampshire native artists. The small permanent collection includes pieces by the many national artists that have been drawn to the Monadnock region since the 19th century
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GASP
Created by the wife-and-husband team of MM Campos-Pons and Neil Leonard, ambitious and independent GASP serves as a gallery, studio and performance space for cutting-edge contemporary art. Don’t be fooled by the somewhat remote Brookline location: while plenty of Boston artists and performers use the space as a second home, this is an international house of experimentation, inviting curators and artists from Norway, Montreal and Egypt.
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TW Wood Art Gallery
This gallery, at E State St on the Vermont College campus, was founded in 1895 by Thomas Waterman Wood (1823–1903), a native of Montpelier, who gained a regional reputation for his portraits and genre paintings. The museum has a large collection of Wood’s art as well as Depression-era paintings. Changing exhibits, especially of arts created in Vermont, fill the main gallery.
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Sol Koffler
RISD maintains several fine galleries. Sol Koffler serves as the main exhibition space for graduate students, where you can see work in a range of media. Hours vary on the weekend. Another design showcase is risd|works, a shop displaying an assortment of goods (jewelry, photographic prints, flatware, coffee tables, children’s books) made by faculty and alumni.
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Alpha Gallery
Presenting the work of some headline-grabbing artists (sometimes local, sometimes international), this starkly minimalist gallery mostly shows oils (some figurative, some abstract), though occasionally you’ll see sculpture, mixed media and prints. They have an annual new-talent exhibition and intermittently have special shows of masters such as Max Beckman and Milton Avery.
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Sharon Arts Center
Based in Sharon, about 8 miles south of Peterborough on NH 123, this arts center also has an annex gallery in Depot Sq. It displays fine arts and crafts by some of the region’s many artists. To reach the arts center, head east on NH 101 and turn right on Elm Hill Rd/NH 123. It’s four miles further, on the right.
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Photographic Resource Center
The independent Photographic Resource Center is one of the few centers in the US devoted exclusively to this art form. The PRC’s rotating exhibits lean toward the modern and experimental, often featuring work by amateur members. Other resources include educational programs, online exhibits, a well-stocked library and unique events.
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Barbara Krakow Gallery
The catalogue of artists represented by this older gallery (established in 1964) reads like something you’d expect from a major museum. Among the famous are Josef Albers, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt and Jasper Johns. Though it’s very much a house of the modernists, the gallery sometimes displays the work of an emerging artist.
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Mass MoCA
Mass MoCA has put once-sleepy North Adams on the map. Just a decade old, this contemporary art museum sprawls across an amazing 222,000 sq ft, making it the USA's largest. Bring your walking shoes! In addition to description-defying installation pieces, MoCA is a venue for cutting-edge theater and dance.
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West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park
Don’t miss the winding, sculpture-filled paths along the river’s edge at the West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park. A captivating collection of contemporary sculpture, paintings, photography and fountains fill this gallery and sculptural park, found 1 mile up Mountain Rd from Stowe village.
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Fenway Studios
Fenway Studios is housed in a historic Arts and Crafts building from the early 20th century. It is home to 25 artists who live and work on site. It’s worth attending their occasional open-studio events just to see the amazing interior, modeled after the ateliers of 19th-century Paris.
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SoWa Artists Guild
In the South End, the area south of Washington St has been dubbed SoWa. Out of the former warehouses and factories, artists have carved out studios and gallery space. The center of the action is the SoWa Artists Guild, which hosts an Open Studios event on the first Friday of every month.
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Helen Day Art Center
In the heart of the village, the Helen Day Art Center is a gently provocative community art center with rotating traditional and avant-garde exhibits. It also sponsors ‘Exposed, ’ an annual townwide outdoor sculptural show that takes place from mid-July to mid-October.
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Allston Skirt Gallery
For stunning exhibits by rising-star artists, visit the Allston Skirt Gallery. The work displayed often combines material beauty with rich interpretations of art theory. Works by Tina Feingold, David Robbins (if you haven't seen his snowmen, you should), Heather Holber-Keene and more.
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Maine Art Gallery
One of a handful of galleries in town, the Maine Art Gallery is a non-profit exhibition space set in a lovely red-brick school house built in 1807. Exhibitions change monthly, with paintings, photographic works and occasional sculpture by local artists.
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