Photo Museums: Connecticut  Another State

More than 1,600 photographic images -- cased photographs, cabinet cards, cartes de visites, glass plate negatives, lantern slides, mounted and un-mounted prints, passe-partouts, stereographs, and tin types -- comprise the Hill-Stead photography collection. Of note are twenty photographs taken by Gertrude Käsebier, including seven of her "art" photographs, nearly 400 photographs taken by Theodate Pope Riddle, and a small collection of 20 autochromes unfaded in color. Also included in the collection is a selection of photos by Karl Klauser.

Concurrent with the painting collection the Bruce Museum has acquired a sizeable collection of drawings and prints ranging from Leonard Ochtman to Robert Rauschenberg. The photography collection is growing rapidly thanks to generous recent gifts. Included here are works by Carl Mydans, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Larry Fink, Mike Disfarmer, Garry Winogrand and many others.

Since its founding in 1844, the Wadsworth Atheneum has presented the artists of its own time, from Thomas Cole and Frederic Church to Salvador Dalí, Piet Mondrian, Andy Warhol and Sol LeWitt. The Contemporary Art collection encompasses works created from 1945 to the present with strong examples of Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Pop art, Conceptual art, and recent movements in painting, sculpture, photography and video. Supplemented by acquisitions from its groundbreaking MATRIX exhibition program—launched in 1975—the collection includes work by many past MATRIX artists, such as John Baldessari, Duane Hanson, Christian Jankowski, Ellsworth Kelly, Glenn Ligon, Lee Lozano, Robert Hill-Stead MuseumMapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, and William Wegman.

The collections now number approximately 10,236 works of American art: 1,133 oils and acrylics, 2,710 drawings (including watercolors and pastels), 1,518 graphics, 268 sculptures, 216 photographs, and 1,782 illustrations. The last, a unique component of the holdings, is the Sanford B.D. Low Illustration Collection, named in memory of the first director. It represents an enormous range of media and subject matter and includes important works by such noted illustrators as Norman Rockwell.

The Yale Center for British Art is a public art museum and research institute for the study of British art and culture. Presented to Yale University by Paul Mellon (Yale College, Class of 1929), the Center houses the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom.

Founded by Larry Aldrich in 1964, The Aldrich is dedicated to fostering innovative artists whose ideas and interpretations of the world around us serve as a platform to encourage creative thinking. The Aldrich, which served an audience of over 37,700 in 2011, is one of the few independent, non-collecting contemporary art museums in the United States, and the only museum in Connecticut devoted to contemporary art. It is one of only twenty museums in Connecticut and only 318 art museums in the country to be accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. In 2011, The Aldrich implemented a new programming strategy of semester-long solo and group exhibitions united under overarching themes that link their content; the acclaimed gallery-based education programs use the work on view to help adults, families, and over 7,000 students annually to connect to our world through contemporary art.