NEW ENGLAND COLLEGE ART MUSEUMS

Some of the best art museums in the country are found at New England’s universities and colleges. In other parts of the country, the larger ones would be the region’s jewel. But here they often sit in the shadow of some pretty powerful competition. Some, like Harvard, charge admission, but others are blessedly free.

Here’s a sampling from our travels and travel plans:

• Yale University Art Museum, New Haven, Connecticut: Reopened after extensive renovations, this is quite simply the best university art museum in America; possibly, the world. And admission is free.
• Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: This newly renovated jewel delivers a fine array of Old Masters, although I’ll emphasize its Turner, Blake, and Whistler for variety. Admission ($15) includes the Sackler and Busch-Reisinger boutique galleries, now under one roof for the first time, thanks to a contemporary, glass-pyramid roofed addition by Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
• Smith College Art Museum, Northampton, Massachusetts: I wasn’t braced for the magnitude of this collection when I zipped out for an hour lunch break during committee meetings just down the street. I’d run into examples from its collection in art books (it has five Childe Hassam paintings on display), but its range of Impressionists and outstanding regional and American landscapes is worth the whirlwind, even before getting to the old European masterpieces. Am I off-base in thinking this display nearly rivals Harvard’s?
• RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island: As the collection for the Rhode Island School of Design, New England’s premier art school, the museum is smaller than one might expect, with a respectable sampling of earlier eras, often masterworks by lesser known artists.
• Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts: An unanticipated but celebrated gem in the western part of the state. We’re told it’s worth the trip.
• Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire: Wonderfully diverse, with uncommon awareness of the Americas and Africa, it mounts an impressive array of special shows and is part of the Hopkins Center for the Arts.
• Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine: Small, with some emphasis on the regional past and the founders’ roots in its permanent collection. Renovations unveiled in 2007 more than doubled the exhibition space, moving the entrance to a glass cube to one side of the building and opening the basement level, where visitors now begin their tour. The special exhibits make for some exciting use of the facility — a recent trip for me included a focus on Marcel Duchamp and his influence, downstairs, as well as prints by Dutch master Hendrick Goltzius, upstairs.