Clark Art Institute

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An amazing museum, world-renowned and tragically underused by Williams students. The museum's collection includes a famous sculpture by Degas, a room full of impressionist paintings including Monet and Renoir, the only marble sculpture in a several-hundred-mile radius, and hundreds of other masterpieces.

The museum houses the collected artwork of Sterling and Francine Clark. It is rumored that Williamstown was chosen as the site to house his collection because it was unlikely to be bombed.

Sterling and his brother Stephen had an art-collecting rivalry; both had very impressive collections, many highlights of which were displayed at an exhibition at the Clark in the summer of 2006. This was the first time that Sterling and Stephen's collections had been displayed together.

The Clark is the reason for Williams' art history graduate program.

Williams students can get a reader's card and have access to the Clark library, even when the museum is not open to the public, like on Mondays.

If you are a Williams student and you have not yet been to the Clark, take an hour or two, walk over, and wander around. It's like having a dozen rooms of the Louvre in your back yard; you might as well take advantage of it.

Also see the Clark Art Institute web site.