Travelog, part 3: a weekend in the Berkshires

 Saturday:  to Williamstown, MA.  We stayed at a mom-and-pop motel.  Accommodations were okay. The flower gardens were still beautiful (no frost yet).   

Bottom center:  a remontant, or re-blooming, iris.

 

Saturday afternoon: Sterling Clark (1877-1956) was a noted art collector and philanthropist. (His father was Isaac Singer’s business partner.) Clark and his wife Francine invested in Impressionists. (He got a money back guarantee on one Renoir.) The Clark Art Institute opened in 1955.  

The original building was the largest order of Vermont marble since the Supreme Court. 

Renoir.  

Winslow Homer, George Inness, and a statue (by?) 

John Singer Sargent. 

Three different artists. (All the women are facing the same way.)

" Stevens at the Clark."  Indeed.

Saturday evening:  we drove 4.5 miles in the rain east to North Adams where we had dinner and saw the new James Bond movie. (Very violent, but senior tickets only $5.00. First movie-in-a-theater since January, 2020.) 

 

Sunday morning: the sun was out and we took the scenic drive down US 7 to Stockbridge and the Norman Rockwell Museum.  Rockwell lived in town; the museum is on the outskirts. 

The studio was moved and oriented the way he had it.  

 

All the Saturday Evening Post covers were in one gallery.    The museum also has a gallery for special exhibitions; this time it was  "Enchanted: the History of Fantasy Illusration."

 

There are many museums and historic sites in the Berkshires.  We had time for only one more on Sunday afternoon:  Arrowhead.  Iin 1850 Herman Melville’s father-in-law helped Melville pay $6000 for an inn (built 1780) + adjacent farmland outside of Pittsfield. Melville loved the view of Mt. Greylock. They found arrowheads in the fields so they called it Arrowhead. They added a wing to accommodate the extended family. In the family until 1920s, then another owner. Owned by Berkshire Historical Society since 1975.  

Upper right:  Melville planted these five spruce trees. 

Left:  Mt. Greylock. When Melville lived here the land was cleared for farming.  Right:   Melville sat here when he wrote Moby Dick. 

Monday morning:  We crossed the border to Bennington,Vermont.     The famous Jane Stickle quilt was not on display at the museum but there was plenty more to see. (Photography of the Grandma Moses paintings was not allowed.)    

Part 1:  Vermont history. 

Upper left: these are boys (early 19th century dress).  Bottom center:  1855 Wilcox & Gibbs.  

Bennington Museum, part 2. Bennington Pottery.

 

Bennington Museum, part 3: Robert Frost….with a special signature quilt. 

(We are grateful that museums have guest wheelchairs.)

Julius John Lankes' woodcuts illustrated Frost's poems.

The story of the quilt.

 

 

Monday afternoon: High on a hill above VT 103. Had to stop to take a closer look! Winter worship would have been very, very cold.  

Next stop:  St. Johnsbury . . .