New Haven (I-95, exit 47 west), the country's first planned city, was designed in 1638 with nine squares around a 16-acre town green as the center of the grid. It was originally graced with a house built in 1639 (now the Henry Whitfield State Museum) and since by buildings designed by modern masters: Marcel Breuer, Gordon Bunshaft, Philip Johnson, Louis I. Kahn, Paul Rudolph and Eero Saarinen. The city's major museums are just footsteps from the Green: The Yale University Art Gallery, the oldest university art gallery in the western hemisphere, was founded in 1832 with a purchase of Colonel John Trumbull paintings of the American Revolution. Today, among 185,000 works of art dating from ancient times to the present, there is a rare collection of American decorative arts and a substantial collection of American and European art with paintings by Manet, Monet, Picasso and van Gogh.

The Louis Kahn-designed Yale Center for British Art houses the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. Donated by Paul Mellon (Yale 1929), the building houses rare books, a research library and displays of drawings, paintings and sculpture. New Haven is a small, modern metropolis with shops, a variety of great ethnic restaurants and stores filled with antiques (in the Westville section of the city). In June the 16-day International Festival of Arts and Ideas is a mostly free celebration featuring performing and visual artists from around the world. Each October, ArtSpace-an artist- and volunteer-run contemporary arts showcase-convenes its City-Wide Open Studio event during which more than 400 artists converge for the largest such happening on the East Coast.

Connecticut, with its artistic heritage and contemporary venues, definitely merits its lofty geographical position between the distinguished cultural centers of New York and Boston.

Irvina Lew frequently reports on collecting destinations for Art & Antiques.

CONNECTICUT CHECKLIST

---

(Area code 203 unless otherwise noted)

MUSEUMS

► The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Ridgefield
www.aldrichart.org
438-4519

► Bruce Museum of Arts and Science
Greenwich
www.brucemuseum.org
869-0376

► Bush-Holley Historic Site
39 Strickland Road. Cos Cob (Greenwich)
www.hstg.org
869-6899

► Connecticut Historical Society Museum
Hartford
www.chs.org
(860) 236-5621

► Florence Griswold Museum
Old Lyme
www.flogris.org
(860) 434-5542

► Hill-Stead Museum
Farmington
www.hillstead.org
(860) 677-4787

► Lyman Allyn Art Museum
New London
www.lymanallyn.org
(860) 443-2545

► Mattatuck Museum
Waterbury
www.mattatuckmuseum.org
753-0381

► New Britain Museum of American Art
New Britain
www.nbmaa.org
(860) 229-0257

► Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Hartford
www.wadsworthatheneum.org
(860) 278-2670

► Weir Farm National Historic Site
Wilton
www.nps.gov/wefa
834-1896

► Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven
www.artgallery.yale.edu
432-0600

► Yale Center for British Art
New Haven
ycba.yale.edu
432-2800

ART GALLERIES & ANTIQUES SHOPS

► Allan Katz Americana
Woodbridge
American folk art.
393-9356

► B & D Johnson Antiques
Greenwich
Estate American and English antiques.
618-0009

► Black Pearl Antiques
Woodbury
Museum-quality American period furniture, American Impressionist art, Asian antiquities.
266-0299

► Butler Fine Art
New Canaan
19th- and 20th-century American paintings.
966-2274

► Cavalier Galleries Inc.
Greenwich
20th-century sculpture and paintings (also in Manhattan and Nantucket).
www.cavaliergalleries.com
869-3664

► Creative Arts Workshop Celebration of American Crafts
New Haven
Exhibits and sales of crafts.
www.creativeartsworkshop.org
562-4927

► David A. Schorsch American Antiques at Hitchcock House Antiques
Woodbury
18th-and 19th-century American folk art.
263-3131

► David Dunton
Woodbury
American Federal period.
www.daviddunton.com
263-5355

► Diane Birdsall Gallery
Old Lyme
Contemporary works by American landscape, figurative and textile artists.
(860) 434-3209

► Eve Stone Antiques
Woodbridge
American, English, German and Dutch metalware.
www.evestoneantiques.com
389-6665

► Fenn Gallery of Contemporary Art
Woodbury
Abstract and representational works.
www.fenngallery.com
 263-3449