Utica is a day trip but we talked about making it an overnight destination,just for fun. Utica Club beer sort of soured the place’s reputation but it is a cool small city and the old brewery sign still stands tall above downtown. We were here to see the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. How did they ever amass such a stellar collection of twentieth century art?
We hadn’t even paid our entrance fees when we spotted an Arthur Dove and a Marsden Hartley right next to it. They have five Joseph Cornell constructions! They have early and late paintings by Modrian, Stuart Davis and Philip Guston. The early ones are better for Modrian and Davis, Guston’s late work is killer. There is another Marsdon Hartley upstairs, one of his late Maine landscapes. It alone is worth the drive but there is a traveling Impressionist show, “Monet to Matisse” there now as well.
The wood paneled walls of the museum are a rich setting for their collection. The upstairs entrance, shown above, features a choice Jackson Pollack, a Louise Bourgeois spider, and Andy Warhol’s Eletric Chair in one shot.
Instead of staying overnight we had a cup of Utica roasted coffee, the company’s slogan is “Wake The Hell Up,” and continued on to Pete and Shelley’s home in the Adirondacks.
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I was born in Utica – as was my distant cousin, Annette Funicello. The museum is beautiful but the rest of it? My Father, who was also born there, said Utica spelled backwards is “ac-itu.” We moved when I was five.