In 1910, after a distinguished career in the United States Army, Sterling Clark settled in Paris and began collecting works of art, an interest he inherited from his parents. When he married Francine Clary in 1919, she joined him in what quickly became a shared passion. Together they created a remarkable collection of paintings, silver, sculpture, porcelain, drawings, and prints with complete reliance on their own judgments and tastes. The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute is an art museum and a center for research and higher education, dedicated to advancing and extending the public understanding of art. No other institution of its scale and character has such a complex and exhilarating mission—complex because interrelating the differing purposes of an art museum and a center for research and higher education is so challenging, and exhilarating because the possibilities and implications of this combination are so dynamic. The Clarks mission and its geographical location define three essential, interrelated aspects of its character and identity: the quality of its art, the beauty of its pastoral setting, and the depth of its commitment to the generation of ideas.

Address: 225 South Street,Williamstown, MA 01267
Telephone: 413 458 2303
Website: http://www.clarkart.edu/