Art Review: Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Conn.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the distinguished Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. It’s one of the essential museums for art lovers, with a long list of cultural firsts, a gorgeous collection, and eclectic, even rousing architecture. It’s a two-hour drive from my home in Vermont and about the same from New York. I lived in Connecticut until my first job as a curator, so the Atheneum and the art gallery at Yale were my local museums, a blessed geography for a young art lover.

I looked at some of my favorite things, given that I hadn’t been there since the COVID crisis and subsequent hysteria. The Atheneum was forced to close but opened the instant it was allowed, a credit to its visitor-oriented leadership. The art gallery at Yale, alas, opened for only a week in October and then closed again. What a disgrace. Tax-free Yale has purged the public from its campus, leaving a region with 500,000 people without their local art museum for a year, even though there’s not a single documented case of COVID transmission in a museum setting. Like most universities, Yale is animated by ideology and superstition these days.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the distinguished Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. It’s one of the essential museums for art lovers, with a long list of cultural firsts, a gorgeous collection, and eclectic, even rousing architecture. It’s a two-hour drive from my home in Vermont and about the same from New York. I lived in Connecticut until my first job as a curator, so the Atheneum and the art gallery at Yale were my local museums, a blessed geography for a young art lover.

I looked at some of my favorite things, given that I hadn’t been there since the COVID crisis and subsequent hysteria. The Atheneum was forced to close but opened the instant it was allowed, a credit to its visitor-oriented leadership. The art gallery at Yale, alas, opened for only a week in October and then closed again. What a disgrace. Tax-free Yale has purged the public from its campus, leaving a region with 500,000 people without their local art museum for a year, even though there’s not a single documented case of COVID transmission in a museum setting. Like most universities, Yale is animated by ideology and superstition these days.