55 Best Lesser Known Art Museums, Artist Studios, and Art Centers in Northeast USA

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Think “World Class Art Museums in the Northeast USA” and big city “majors” come to mind: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to start. Of course, all of these institutions are worthy of note, and are covered extensively by the press. But there are other museums that, though they might take up a fraction of the real estate and square footage (read: less overwhelming), are equally worthy of your time - and just might surprise you. The following small city and smaller town Art Museums, Artists home studios, and Art Centers in the Northeast are often overlooked and shouldn’t be. Add these to the “Best College Art and History Museums” for a more comprehensive list. Additional information on these and complete itineraries for hundreds of “Offbeat Northeast” getaways can be found on GetawayMavens.com.

PENNSYLVANIA

Chads Ford: Brandywine River Art Museum and Wyeth Artist Studios. The Brandywine River Valley is ground-zero for the prolific Wyeth family. Compare the work of all three generations of Wyeths in one place – NC’s cruder, prop-driven oils (he did not consider himself a “fine painter”), Andy’s photo-like detail with an almost tactile aspect, and Jamie’s stunning and whimsical work. Don’t miss independent tours of NC’s Home and Studio (built with commissions earned from illustrating Treasure Island, Last of the Mohicans and other books for Scribner Publishing), Andrew’s home studio, and the Kuerner Farm – the subject of many an Andrew Wyeth painting. Andy’s hideaway home/studio, a repurposed schoolhouse – was his “inner sanctum,” opened to the public after he died in 2009.

Reading: Reading Public Museum. Like all grand “park” museums – this one within a spectacular 25 acre Arboretum – Reading Public has a smattering of everything from ancient artifacts to modern art.

Reading: Goggle Works Center for the Arts. Not to be confused with “Google Works” (it happens all the time) this arts facility inside the guts of what was once Willson’s Goggle Factory houses dance companies, an indie movie theater, jewelry making, glassblowing and ceramic classrooms and a bevy of artist’s studios where you can meet those who paint, sculpt, photograph, and work in textiles, and then purchase directly from the artist his/herself.

Scranton: Everhart Museum. Built in 1908 in Nay Aug Park, this approachable “General Museum” runs the gamut of rocks and minerals, American Folk and African Art, and one of the largest collections of Dorflinger Glass in the country.

Butler: The Maridon Museum. A substantial collection of 20th Century Asian art is hidden, improbably, in a tiny western PA town on a very inconspicuous residential street. Mary Phillips (who married Big Oil heir, Don Phillips) lived in an unpretentious Butler home and never traveled farther than Atlantic City, NJ. But Phillips had a pert, intellectual mind and a penchant for collecting Asian art. The Phillips had no children, and knowing that, after her death, her survivors wouldn’t care about the jade, porcelain, and woodcarvings that she had amassed over the years, Mary built a museum (naming it after Mary and Don) in 2004 to house it all. She hired New York City based Asian art expert, Edith Frankel, to design and curate her collection, and was happy to visit her meaningful art in its new home until her death at age 88 in 2009. The Asian art collection at the Maridon is fascinating on many levels – the most elemental being its stunning beauty and fine craftsmanship. But you’ll learn a lot about Asian history and the importance of these figures as well, in the most unlikely of places. It’s a knockout museum worth a drive from anywhere.

Doylestown: James Michener Art Museum. An art museum named after the King of the Generational Saga? Yes, the man who wrote Hawaii and The Source had roots in Bucks County, though dirt poor ones, and apparently was an art collector since birth. When the Bucks County Prison closed in 1984, and a movement was afoot to repurpose it as a world-class art museum, Michener was pressed to lend his name as fundraising draw. Now considered “The Art & Soul of Bucks County,” the Michener Museum features the largest collection of Pennsylvania impressionists, thanks to a donation of 68 paintings from Gerry and Margaurite Lenfest in 1999.

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