WILLIAMSTOWN, MA.-The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute will tour 12 of its best Impressionist masterworks from its renowned collection to five art museums across the country as part of its 50th anniversary celebration. Collecting the Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute premieres at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts on November 12, 2005. The exhibition will travel to three museums across the country before closing at the Joslyn Art Museum in 2007. The exhibition expresses the Clark’s commitment to making works from its collections available to communities in which the local museums do not have significant Impressionist holdings.

Collecting the Impressionists will travel to the following museums: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts – November 12, 2005 – January 1, 2006; Phoenix Art Museum – January 21, 2006 – March 12, 2006; San Antonio Museum of Art – November 18, 2006 – January 7, 2007; Norton Gallery of Art (West Palm Beach) – January 20 – March 11, 2007; Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha) – March 24, 2007 – May 13, 2007.

The New Orleans Museum of Art was originally scheduled to host the exhibition in spring 2006, but due to Hurricane Katrina, it is unable to do so. The Clark is working with New Orleans to reschedule for a date in late 2007.

Collecting the Impressionists will be the first nationally touring exhibition of works from the Clark’s collections and will feature 12 major paintings by Renoir, Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Manet, and Morisot. Among the highlights is Renoir’s Girl Crocheting, the first of 38 paintings by the artist acquired by Sterling Clark, which has not been seen outside of Williamstown since 1946. The exhibition will also include Monet’s The Duck Pond and Spring in Giverny, which traveled only once before from the Clark.

With this exhibition the Clark is making a concerted effort to share its collection with communities that do not have significant Impressionist holdings. In selecting the five tour museums, the Clark is specifically focusing on small to mid-size museums, and more than 80 were invited to apply for participation in the tour. The exhibition is being provided to the museums without the traditional participation fee that offsets the costs of organizing and managing touring exhibitions. The exhibition will be toured in two cycles, from November 2005 to March 2006, and from October 2006 to May 2007, so that these works will be on view at the Clark during the summer when many out-of-state visitors travel to the Berkshires.

“We cannot think of a better way to celebrate this milestone anniversary than collaborating with museums across the country to bring Impressionist masterpieces to their communities,” said Michael Conforti, director of the Clark. “The goals of this exhibition are simple – in sharing our collection we provide the public with the opportunity to experience great works of art, and we make the Institute and its distinct mission more well-known around the country.”

Founded in 1955 by collectors and philanthropists Sterling and Francine Clark, the Clark is one of the country’s foremost art museums and also a dynamic center for research and higher education in art history and criticism. The Clark’s exceptional collections of Old Master, Impressionist, and 19th-century American art on display in the museum’s intimate galleries are enhanced by its dramatic 140-acre setting in the Berkshires. In 2003, the Clark unveiled designs for its forthcoming building expansion and campus enhancement designed by Pritzker-Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando.

Over a four-decade period, Sterling and Francine Clark built an extraordinary collection of art that became the foundation of the institution. The collections have grown by 25% over the Clark’s 50-year history, yet their scope and character continue to represent the taste and interests of Sterling and Francine Clark. The collections encompass more than 8,000 works and focus almost exclusively on European and American painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. The Institute's greatest strengths lie in 19th-century European and American painting, especially the French Impressionists.

“As can be seen in the works featured in this exhibition, the Clarks preferred the sort of paintings—sun-dappled landscapes, portraits and nudes of young women, and still-lifes- that best suited the domestic spaces of their homes,” said Richard Rand, senior curator at the Clark. “Pierre-Auguste Renoir remained for them the quintessential Impressionist, and they acquired more than 35 of his paintings.”

Collecting the Impressionists features Renoir most prominently, exhibiting five of the artist’s works, including: At the Concert, Girl Crocheting, A Girl with a Fan, The Onions, and Self Portrait. Other works in the exhibition include Degas’ The Dancing Lesson, Monet’s The Duck Pond and Spring in Giverny, Morisot’s A Girl Arranging Her Hair, Pissarro’s Piette's House at Montfoucault and The River Oise Near Pontoise, and Manet’s Moss Roses in a Vase.