The Clark

From Publishers Weekly The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., which opened in 1955, was founded by an heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, Robert Sterling Clark (1877-1956), who began collecting art in Paris in 1911. He had a strong interest in 19th-century painters, particularly the French impressionists and Americans Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent, but the museum also has old-master paintings, prints, drawings, decorative arts, sculpture and illustrated books. Eighty-four of these are reproduced in fine color in this elegant volume. Included are such disparate works as Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels by Piero della Francesca; the once immensely popular Nymphs and Satyr by Bouguereau; paintings by Monet, Renoir and other impressionists; decorative urns, cups and baskets in silver and porcelain; and a sheet of pen-and-ink animal studies by Albrecht Durer. The accompanying essays, by 10 current and former staff members, are insightful and readable. This is a splendid introduction to a small, delightful collection. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.