Wednesday, September 23, 2009


August 20-27, 2009
The Clark Institute
Williamstown, MA
I had promised my mother that I would take her on a trip after I retired. At first we planned to go to Washington DC and visit my sister in Philadelphia along the way. However, it's been many years since I drove longer than three hours and I realized I needed to start with a closer destination. My mother had wanted to visit the Clark Institute for years but her husband would not take her. So Williamstown MA, five hours from her town, seemed ideal.

I found a cozy room at The Maples Terrace. It was a short drive to The Clark (http://www.clarkart.edu/), restaurants and the Williams College Museum of Art (http://www.wcma.org/).
We arrived in Williamstown on Monday, checked into our B&B, then perused a binder of menus before deciding on Hobson's Choice for dinner.
On Tuesday we were at The Clark at 10:30am and left at 5:30pm: seven hours later! There were so many wonderful paintings and objects, as well as a special exhibition on Georgia O'Keefe and Arthur Dove. Among the American paintings were many by Winslow Homer and a few by Edward Hopper. One of my favorite paintings in the permanent collection was: Smoke of Ambergris by John Singer Sargent.

On Wednesday we visited the Williams College Museum of Art and were very pleased with the extent and variety it collection. There was even a wonderful special exhibition of Maurice Prendergast in Italy!

Do not miss either of these museums if you are in the Williamstown, Massachusetts area.

The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is showing 130 of O'Keefe's abstract works until January 17, 2010.
http://whitney.org/www/exhibition/okeeffe.jsp