S P E C I A L
A D V E R T I S I N G
S E C T I O N
FOCUS ON BERKSHIRES, MA
T
he Berkshires stand as a dynamic rural retreat overflowing with inspiration to ignite your creative spirit. The region, which stretches up through Western Massachusetts and into southern Vermont, is filled with first-rate resorts, farm-to-table dining, antique shops and galleries, and revered houses for glass and contemporary art. Summer brings the Boston Symphony Orchestra to Tanglewood and an extensive calendar of cultural activity and festivals, though when autumn meets the Berkshires, it becomes a work of art all in itself. A sweep of color-spotted hills and mountain peaks are the backdrop for stunning Berkshire Cottages reigning from the heyday of the Gilded Age. A Sunday drive will take your breath away, though not for long. Air this fresh is downright medicinal.
Layer on the cozy clothing and let go of the small stuff––but don’t kick your feet up just yet. There is much to be intrigued by around here. Bennington, Vermont was a prosperous industrial town in the mid-19th century, and an economic boom in 1890 created wealthy mill owners, attracting residents from New York to Bennington to build glorious summer homes filled with art, furniture, and decorative objects. Gilded Age Vermont, a new permanent installation at the Bennington Museum, highlights the grandeur born from the region at that time. See Renaissance Revival furnishings, a stylish Estey parlor organ, paintings by William Morris Hunt and Frederick MacMonnies, and glass and metal works by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The museum hosts an ever-growing selection of American art focused on Vermont, from the
largest collections of 19th-century Bennington Pottery and Grandma Moses paintings to Bennington Modernism, another new gallery featuring works by avant-garde artists of national and international stature with local ties to Bennington during the 1950-1970s. On view through the end of the year: 20th-century Vermont Ceramics featuring works by Karen Karnes, David Gill, Brother Thomas, and Charlotte Potok. A drive south over the Vermont border brings you into Williamstown––often called “The Village Beautiful” for its blend of natural beauty and small town charm. Art and ideas connect at the venerable Williams College Museum of Art, home to the largest collection of works by brothers Charles and Maurice Prendergast, and an especially well-rounded collection of American art from the late-18th
NOUVEAU BRUT becket arts center www.becketartscenter.org
NOW DIG THIS!
Art & Black Los Angeles 1960—1980 July 20—December 1 Free Admission wcma.williams.edu Open every day 10am—5pm after July 20 This exhibition was organized by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. David Hammons. America the Beautiful, 1968. Lithograph and body print. 39 x 29 1⁄2 in. Collection of the Oakland Museum of California, The Oakland Museum Founders Fund.
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