WILLIAMSTOWN, MA.- The first exhibition to unite masterpieces from the remarkable collections of Sterling Clark and Stephen Clark is presented at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute through September 4, 2006. Featuring close to 70 paintings, The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings examines the brothers’ collecting and how they helped to define the changing taste for Impressionist and Early Modern art in the first half of the 20th century. It explores their relationship, their rivalry, and the influential but ultimately divergent roles they came to play in the arts in the United States.

Among the highlights in the exhibition will be a number of iconic works from the 19th and 20th centuries, including Van Gogh’s The Night Café (Le Café de Nuit) (1888, Yale University Art Gallery) from Stephen’s collection, and Renoir’s At the Concert (1881) from Sterling’s collection, as well as a number of rarely exhibited works from private collections by artists such as Matisse and Vuillard. The Clark Brothers Collect will also feature American paintings including Homer’s Undertow (1886) and Sargent’s A Street in Venice (1880-1882), both owned by Sterling, and Eakins’ Dr. Agnew (1889, Yale University Art Gallery) and Hopper’s House by the Railroad (1925, The Museum of Modern Art) from Stephen’s collection. Other artists in the exhibition from Sterling’s collection include Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Remington, and Renoir, and from Stephen’s collection Cézanne, Manet, and Seurat.

The Clark Brothers Collect will also be the first exhibition to reunite and explore Stephen’s collection, whose European and American Modernist masterpieces form key holdings of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Addison Gallery of American Art at Andover. It will also provide new insight into Sterling’s collecting, which is noted for its Impressionist and French Academic masterpieces and serves as the foundation of the Clark. Each brother’s collection is considered to be among the great collections of the early 20th century, rivaling those of contemporaries such as Albert Barnes, Chester Dale, and Duncan Phillips.

“The Clark Brothers Collect is the perfect culmination of the Clark’s 50th anniversary celebration,” said director Michael Conforti. “The exhibition brings into sharp focus each brother’s rich and distinct legacy while highlighting the foundation upon which the Clark has flourished. It also presents two different approaches to institution-building that are still relevant for American collectors and museums today.”

Each a powerful force in the art world of New York, where they made their homes, the brothers had an extraordinary cultural impact – although in very different ways – through their roles as visionary institution-builders and philanthropists. Sterling became the better known collector because of the museum and research institute he founded in Williamstown. Stephen, on the other hand, was among the founding trustees of the Museum of Modern Art, where he served as chairman of the trustees from 1939 to 1946, and was also involved in creating numerous cultural institutions in Cooperstown.

This exhibition provides the opportunity to experience the masterworks from the two collections as they would have appeared if Sterling and Stephen had realized their early dreams of jointly founding an art museum. The brothers planned to establish their museum in their family’s hometown of Cooperstown, NY, or in New York City, but their relationship never recovered from a rift that formed in the early 1920s.

“The Clark Brothers Collect will provide a rare and revealing dialogue between the brothers’ works,” said Richard Rand, senior curator at the Clark. “Throughout the galleries, visitors will notice Sterling’s persistent love for the beautiful and seductive, and Stephen’s quest for the bold and forceful. While they brought different philosophies to their collecting, Sterling and Stephen each managed to acquire an extraordinary suite of masterpieces, and this exhibition will give viewers an unprecedented opportunity to view them side-by-side.”

Sterling and Stephen: Shared Vision, Singular Legacies - Heirs to the Singer Sewing fortune of their grandfather, Edward Clark, Robert Sterling Clark and Stephen Carlton Clark were raised in New York City. They both inherited their parents’ interest in collecting art and supporting living artists. The brothers’ culturally rich upbringing instilled in them a profound passion for collecting, particularly in the field of 19th century French painting. While early in their collecting they had often consulted one another and sought out works together, by the 1920s they were no longer on speaking terms. Their relationship suffered after disagreements over the family fortune. The brothers remained at odds for most of their lives, until 1952 when the death of Stephen’s son prompted Sterling to contact his brother.

In spite of the brothers’ estrangement, Sterling and Stephen followed paths that were largely parallel. Sterling founded the Clark in Williamstown in 1955. Stephen established a number of cultural institutions in Cooperstown, including the Fenimore Art Museum (to which he donated his outstanding collection of American Folk Art and a group of important American paintings), The Farmers’ Museum, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Stephen was also instrumental in relocating the New York State Historical Association to Cooperstown and provided the institution with a permanent home.