Welcome to Ct Art Trail

Contact: Renee A. Santhouse, Communications Manager

Traveling Along the Connecticut Art Trail

This Summer

May 8, 2011, Connecticut … Great artists and collectors have escaped the summer heat of the big cities to enjoy the beaches, woodlands, farms and towns of Connecticut since before the nation's founding. Connecticut is wealthy with the art, tools, and treasures that illuminated the American republic. Quality collections rich in art, heritage and history, including European masterpieces, American Impressionism, ancient art, and regionally significant objects, as well as contemporary shows are offered this summer along the Connecticut Art Trail (www.arttrail.org).

This 2011 summer season, all around Connecticut, and within a comfortable day's drive, more than 15 significant cultural centers and world-class museums have conveniently joined together into a grand tour. To facilitate adventuresome tours, the Connecticut Art Trail Art Pass now makes it easy to organize and visit more than one museum at a time. The Art Pass features considerable savings and family-friendly arrangements so that adults and children of all ages can more easily connect with America's art, heritage and history while enjoying the seasonal events offered by Connecticut's distinguished museums and historic sites.

Touring with the Art Pass Along the Seashore

I-95 Corridor, New York to Providence

With an Art Pass in hand, you can travel along the coast highway, I-95. Within an hour of Manhattan you will find the Bruce Museum (http://brucemuseum.org) in Greenwich. This spring the Museum is showing Human Connections: Figurative Art from the Bruce Museum Collection, a broad selection of figural works from the permanent collection, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, and works on paper. The show includes significant works by William Merritt Chase, George Wesley Bellows, August Rodin, James Jacques Joseph Tissot, Gaston Lachaise, and Milton Avery, among others. Also this summer the Museum will show Power Incarnate: Allan Stone's Collection of Sculpture from the Congo; Picasso's Vollard Suite: The Scuptor's Studio; Saddle Up! Horsing Around at the Bruce, and more.

Five minutes further down the road, you'll find Cos Cob and the Greenwich Historical Society's Bush-Holley House (www.greenwichhistory.org), a historic boardinghouse on the waterfront that housed a summer art colony that became the cradle of American Impressionism. The Greenwich Historical Society's popular Green Market at Bush-Holley Historic Site opens for business this year on May 17th. The market offers seasonal, organic and local produce, herbs, fresh-cut flowers and plants, local honey and jams, and more, every Tuesday from 9 am- 3 pm and every Friday from noon-6 pm, rain or shine. Visit, shop, and enjoy the historic site as well as rotating art and history exhibits in the Storehouse Gallery.

Another half-hour down the highway, in Norwalk, the Center for Contemporary Printmaking (www.contemprints.org) offers the 8th Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition this summer, a selection of contemporary miniature prints from around the globe. The Center offers printmaking workshops all summer long. Stop in for Make-a-Print Saturday afternoons on June 18 or July 9, or take an all-day workshop as part of your vacation.

From Norwalk, follow the American Impressionist painters a half-hour north, up Route 7, to the Weir Farm (www.nps.gov/wefa/index.htm), Connecticut's National Historical Park. The Weir Farm was the home and studios of J. Alden Weir. Childe Hassam, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and John Twachtman all painted the gardens and stone walls of this unspoiled hilltop farm.

Driving another ten minutes takes you to Ridgefield's historical main street and the up-to-the-moment contemporary showing at the Aldrich Museum (www.aldrichart.org). This summer, the Museum will exhibit shows by Jenny Dubnoe, James Esber, Hope Gangloff, Thilo Hoffman, KAWS, Timothy White, MTAA and more.

Continue an hour up I-95 to Yale University in New Haven, where two not-to-be-missed museums face each other on opposite sides of Chapel Street. The Yale Center for British Art (http://ycba.yale.edu/index.asp) is home to the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom and is housed in a landmark building by Louis Kahn. This summer, the Center will host three exhibitions ranging from royal Regency to web 2.0. On view at the Yale University Art Gallery (http://artgallery.yale.edu/) this summer is Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery, which includes treasures such as John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence and Winslow Homer's Morning Bell. There is also a remarkable permanent collection and much more to see. A schedule of free talks and tours accompanies the exhibitions at both museums.

Continuing another hour along I-95 and across the Connecticut River (Connecticut is only about three hours wide along I-95), there are several exceptional museums. The Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme (http://www.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/) offers a large and significant collection of American art. The museum is located in an historic summer colony of American painters known as the "American Giverny." Scheduled for this summer are Inspiration and Impact: The Legacy of the Hartford Steam Boiler Collection; In Bloom: Mountain Laurel and the Lyme Art Colony; and American Landscapes: Treasures from the Parrish Art Museum. The museum also offers garden and mid-summer festivals.

Further along the coastal highway, the Lyman Allyn Art Museum (www.lymanallyn.org/index.html), in New London, is best known for its holdings of 19th-century American paintings, ranging from the Hudson River School to the Aesthetic Movement and Impressionism, as well as a comprehensive collection of European art.

Touring with the Art Pass, Across Connecticut's Heartland

I-84 Corridor, New York to Boston

The Art Pass also takes you west to east, along I-84, inland and diagonally across the state. Along this route, you first come upon the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury (www.mattatuckmuseum.org). The Mattatuck is a regional museum located inside an architectural gem. The museum features a dynamic history exhibit designed to engage audiences with interactive displays, oral histories, historic movie clips, and a Conversation Table. Art galleries house a permanent collection of American artists from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, and changing exhibitions of contemporary artists. The summer shows include: Waterbury in the Civil War: Letters from the Front; and Rooms with a View: 200 Years of American Design.

A short way further along I-84, in Farmington, is Hill-Stead Museum (www.hillstead.org), a National Historic Landmark. Built in 1901 by pioneering female architect Theodate Pope, Hill-Stead boasts a significant collection of Impressionist art by Degas, Monet, Manet, Cassatt and Whistler, as well as Japanese woodblock prints and works on paper. A centerpiece of the 152-acre estate is the c. 1920 Beatrix Farrand-designed Sunken Garden, today the site of the summerlong Sunken Garden Poetry Festival. The Festival, bringing to Farmington world-class poets and musicians, takes place June - August. Also happening on the property this summer through fall is the popular Farmers Market (July through October).

A bit further east is the New Britain Museum of American Art (www.nbmaa.org). Acknowledged as the first museum in the world dedicated solely to collecting American art, the NBMAA is renowned for its preeminent collection spanning three centuries of American history. On view through July 3 is American Odyssey: The Warner Collection of American Art, and opening July 15 will be The Tides of Provincetown: Pivotal Years in America's Oldest Continuous Art Colony (1899-2011).

The Capitol City, Hartford, is the home of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (www.wadsworthatheneum.org/), America's firts public art museum. The sheer quality and range of fine and decorative arts place the Wadsworth Atheneum among the greatest art museums in the United States. The museum's renowned collections include Hudson River Valley and Old Master paintings, modernist masterpieces, 19th-century French and Impressionist paintings, costumes and textiles, American furniture and decorative arts, and the vanguard of contemporary art.

Further east, across the Connecticut River and just south of I-84, in Storrs, is the William Benton Museum of Art (www.thebenton.org), the state art museum at the University of Connecticut, presenting a variety of changing exhibitions, traveling exhibitions, faculty and MFA installations. This summer from May 31 - August 7, the exhibitions are The Colored Woodcut in 19th Century Japan, and The Art of Dr. Seuss. Admission is free.

For full information about summer programs and events, please contact each museum directly.

With support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism

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