A Day in the Berkshires:

The Berkshire Botanical Gardens, Schantz Gallery, & the Frelinghuysen Morris House

It doesn’t take much to convince me to take a day trip up to the Berkshires. Several friends of ours have retired in these lovely gentle highlands of Western Massachusetts. Technically, the Berkshires are a southern extension of the Green Mountain range of Vermont. They offer abundant opportunities for outdoor natural adventures (hiking, biking, and fishing) along with a rich array of cultural treasures to enjoy and savor.  This section of the Appalachian Mountains makes a perfect getaway for folks living in the Northeast corridor from New York City to Boston. The tipping point for us to pack-up and go was triggered when we realized our artist friend Toni Ross’s site-responsive installation was coming to a close at the Berkshire Botanical Garden https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/.  Her piece was part of a larger sculpture installation entitled: Beautiful Strangers: Artists Discover the Garden curated by James Salomon of Salomon Contemporary in New York City. The day was clear and cool when we arrive in Stockbridge, making for a good walkabout. The sights at this destination were worth the road trip  which took about two hours and fifty minutes door-to-door. I hope that seeing the gardens through my eyes, as expressed in these photos, will encourage you to visit, absorb, and appreciate what the Berkshire Botanical Gardens has to offer. I suggest calling ahead or checking their web site for special events (like weddings, receptions, or talks) before you visit and wearing durable walking shoes for forays off the well-trodden path. Enjoy the bountiful sunlight light!

 

 

 

Hominin, Burnt by Michele Oka Donner 2015
44”x14”x5” Cast Bronze from a found piece of wood, edition of 3
Photo: Andrew Buck
Beautiful Strangers: Artists Discover the Garden

Male Torso
by Ned Smyth, 2015
144” x 96” x 30” Painted Urethane
Photo: Andrew Buck
Beautiful Strangers: Artists Discover the Garden

Found Lines I, II, III
by Toni Ross, 2018
Site-specific Intervention 24-18K gold leaf on selected trees
Photo: Andrew Buck
(View 1)
Beautiful Strangers: Artists Discover the Garden

Found Lines I, II, III
by Toni Ross, 2018
Site-specific Intervention 24-18K gold leaf on selected trees
Photo: Andrew Buck
(View 2)
Beautiful Strangers: Artists Discover the Garden

Found Lines I, II, III
Toni Ross, 2018
Site-specific Intervention 24-18K gold leaf on selected trees
Photo: Andrew Buck
(View 3)
Beautiful Strangers: Artists Discover the Garden

Found Lines I, II, III
by Toni Ross, 2018
Site-specific Intervention 24-18K gold leaf on selected trees
Photo: Andrew Buck
(View 4)
Beautiful Strangers: Artists Discover the Garden

 

After completing our visit at the Berkshire Botanical Garden, we stopped for a quick lunch in the heart of the village in Stockbridge. While there, I noticed a sign for Schantz Galleries which represents high-end contemporary glass artists.  We had enjoyed a personal introduction to Arthur Weiner’s private collection of Dale Chihuly’s work a few years ago in support of the Weiner Museum of Decorative Arts http://wmoda.com//. So naturally, the notion of seeing a variety of glass artists’ work in an intimate gallery space was appealing.  The collection on view at the Schantz Galleries was remarkable.  We were impressed by the variety of stunning glass works, which ranged from sculptural, decorative, and contemplative.  As a former printmaker, the two-dimensional prints by Dale Chihuly caught my eyes for their energy, vitality, and apparent spontaneity. The glass sculpture of Michael Behrens, who lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany, was simplified, yet powerfully evocative. Behrens’s piece Seaforms 2016 stood out because of the contrast between the sweeping, gently curved form and the fluid, geometric colored pattern which was contained by, and yet constituted, the overall organic form. The piece appears as a wave within an arc, a partial drop of sea; the kind of thing that, despite its sophistication, might resonate with the down-to-earth poetry of William Carlos Williams.

Seaform
by Michael Behrens, 2016
kiln cast glass, 21.7” x 29.1” x 8″
Schantz Galleries – Stockbridge, Massachusetts

https://schantzgalleries.com

Having spent a good part of the day surrounded by beauty indoors and outdoors, we headed for something completely different: The Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio http://www.frelinghuysen.org (pronounced: fray-ling-high-zen) in Lenox, Massachusetts.

We had a most informative guided tour of the life experiences of George L.K. Morris and Suzy Frelinghuysen. This provided a front seat view of the emergence of Modern art as seen and experienced by these two American artists who, as fate would have it, were born into a life of wealth, privilege, and luxury. I will not go into more detail other than to suggest or recommend that you to learn more about them yourself.  Sadly, a tour of their former home and studio is like being immersed into a three-dimensional time capsule. There is an eerie sense of everything being frozen. It is all too easy to imagine voices, murmurs, conversations, and clattering of dinnerware over the sounds of classical piano as the music stretched across the living room and floated into the painting studio. As I wandered through George’s and Suzy’s bedrooms, thoughts on stratification arose, as in stratification within the art world. Independent of their class or wealth status, are these two artists overlooked figures in the history of Modern Art? Have their lives and commitment to making and supporting art been reduced to parenthetical footnotes of art history?  In separating out their life story, which had more than its share of tragedy, from their artwork, I am quite confident of how I feel about their work. I am of the opinion that Suzy Frelinghuysen was a better painter than George; and that her later abstract paintings, while light and airy, would hold up easily to the work of Joan Mitchell. My sense is that George was more active in the painting circles of society (Paris and New York City); and that his curatorial contributions and support for other emerging Modern European artists were as significant as his own body of artwork.

Still Life with Musical Instruments (painting and collage) Suzy Frelinghuysen, c. 1944

http://www.frelinghuysen.org/gallery/suzy-frelinghuysen.html

How quickly the day passed! Three art stops, a nice lunch and quick dinner, interspersed with a brief stop at the Premium discount outlet stores in Lee on this bright sunny day made for a memorable close to an otherwise soggy summer. My thoughts turned to possibilities for a long fall weekend in the Berkshires. Perhaps a future visit to the Clark Art Institute, the Williams College Museum of Art, the Eric Carle Museum, the Berkshire Museum, MASS MoCA, or even the Bennington Museum in Vermont will be next.