Clark Art Institute

Top choice


Even if you're not an avid art lover, don't miss this gem, set on 140 gorgeous acres of expansive lawns, flower-filled meadows and rolling hills. The building – with its triple-tiered reflecting pool – is a stunner. The collections are particularly strong in the impressionists, with significant works by Monet, Pissarro and Renoir. Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent represent contemporaneous American painting.

Robert Sterling Clark (1877–1956), a Yale engineer whose family made a fortune in the sewing-machine industry, began collecting art in Paris in 1912. He and his wife eventually housed their impressive collection in Williamstown in a white marble temple built expressly for the purpose. 'The Clark,' as everyone in town calls it, is less than 1 mile south of the intersection of US 7 and MA 2.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Williams College Museum of Art

0.63 MILES

In the center of town is this worthwhile – and free! – art museum. It has a collection of some 15,000 pieces, with substantial works by notables such as…

2. Williams College

0.69 MILES

Here is the Berkshires' quintessential college campus, with wide green lawns and graceful academic architecture, surrounded by a sleepy town and the…

3. MASS MoCA

5.03 MILES

MASS MoCA sprawls over 13 acres of downtown North Adams – one-third of the entire business district. After the Sprague Electric Company closed in 1985,…

5. Laumeister Art Center

12.12 MILES

Half a mile west of Bennington's Old First Church, this arts center has a hodgepodge of offerings, including the Great Outdoors gallery of wind sculptures…

6. Bennington Museum

12.15 MILES

Bennington's standout attraction, this museum features the world’s largest public collections of Grandma Moses paintings and Bennington pottery, along…

7. Old First Church

12.17 MILES

Gracing the center of Old Bennington, this historic church was built in 1805 in Palladian style. Its churchyard holds the remains of five Vermont…

8. Bennington Battle Monument

12.55 MILES

Commemorating the Battle of Bennington, a crucial American Revolutionary War battle fought near here in 1777, Vermont's loftiest structure offers an…

  • placement: superzone
  • path: Destinations/POIs/superzone
  • possible size: [970, 250], [970, 90], [728, 90], [1, 1],
  • targeting:
    {
      "url": "usa/new-england/williamstown/attractions/clark-art-institute/a/poi-sig/1127182/362043",
      "position": "superzone"
    }