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Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute’s new Stone Hill Center from the north. —Richard Pare photo

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John Singer Sargent, “Fumée d’ambre gris,” 1880, oil on canvas, 54¾ by 355/8 inches. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

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Winslow Homer, “Undertow,” 1886, oil on canvas, 29¾ by 475/8   inches. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

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THE CLARK’S INSTITUTIONAL EXPANSION AND ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM w/3 cuts;

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WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS. — The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute will open its Stone Hill Center on June 22 with two inaugural exhibitions: “Homer and Sargent from the Clark” and “Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness and the Art of Painting Softly.” Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando with landscape architects Reed Hilderbrand Associates, the 32,000-square-foot building blends gracefully into the hillside just south of the Clark’s main campus.

Stone Hill Center will house the Williamstown Art Conservation Center (WACC) and 2,500 square feet of intimate galleries dedicated to showcasing highlights from the permanent collection, as well as works representing periods and cultures not currently shown at the Clark. The building also will include 1,000 square feet for classroom and meeting use.

The two-story, wood and glass building provides vistas of the countryside on the north, east and west, with a terrace and outdoor café offering a panorama of the Green Mountains and Taconic Range; it also features trails leading visitors around the campus and building.

The opening of Stone Hill Center completes Phase I of the Clark’s program to expand its facilities and enhance its programs. With Phase II, also designed by Tadao Ando with Reed Hilderbrand, the Clark will reorient its entire main campus around a new landscape element — a 1½-acre reflecting pool, which will serve in the winter as a public ice-skating pond — and will construct a new freestanding exhibition, visitor and conference center, with galleries for special exhibitions, facilities for museum and academic programs, and a range of improved visitor amenities. 

Also included in Phase II is the renovation of the Clark’s original 1955 neoclassical building, which will create 40 percent more gallery space for the permanent collection. Renovation of the Manton Research Center will increase and expand the facilities for the Clark’s research program and library.  Phase II is scheduled for completion in 2013.

Stone Hill Center will host smaller-scale special exhibitions of works from the Clark’s collections, as well as loaned works of art from periods and cultures. The grounds surrounding the building will be used to display sculpture.

The exhibition “Homer and Sargent” features iconic paintings by these two important American artists, including Winslow Homer’s “Undertow” and “West Point, Prout’s Neck,” and John Singer Sargent’s “Fumée d’Ambre Gris” and “Portrait of Carolus-Duran.”

These bold American paintings will offer a wonderful complement to the soft painting of American artists in “Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly,” which is being shown in the Manton Research Center galleries. Both exhibitions will be on view June 22–October 19.

Integral to Stone Hill Center is its light-flooded conservation facility — the only freestanding conservation center in the United States designed by a major architect — which will permit visitors to glimpse the work being done inside the labs, as well as its studio art classroom and conference room. 

The Clark will be centralizing its Research and Academic Program in its 1973 building, recently renamed the Manton Research Center in acknowledgment of a $50 million endowment gift from the Manton Foundation in 2007.

 The Clark is at 225 South Street. For more information, www.clarkart.edu or 413-458-2303.