Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

Description:

• Opened in 1842, this was the first public art museum in the United States and remains a repository with few equals in New England. The strength of the collection lies primarily in its American paintings, spanning the period from landscape artists of the 19th century through luminaries of the New York School of the mid-20th century. On the top floor are works by Thomas Cole, of the Hudson River School, and his contemporaries Frederick Church and Albert Bierstadt. On the balcony are more Americans -- Andrew Wyeth, Milton Avery, Norman Rockwell. The first floor contains rule-bending multimedia works, as well as canvases by abstract expressionists and pop and op artists of the 1950s and 1960s like de Kooning and Rauschenberg.

  A new director, Susan Lubowsky Talbott, of the Smithsonian Institution, was appointed in early 2008 and will oversee upcoming renovations of the museum's historic buildings. On the first Thursday of each month, the museum is open until 8pm with live music, cocktails, and special gallery talks and films.

• © Frommer's 2013

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Very Highly Recommended 2010