CT Modern Driving tour
Welcome to the Connecticut Modern Driving Tour, a self-guided tour of sites located throughout the state that relate to mid-twentieth century modern art and architecture.
To find out more, click on the links below to view each site’s location, parking and visitation guidelines, and a brief description. Some sites have special open house dates; please read the description closely for more details.
Many of the sites on this tour were designed and built during the period of mass suburbanization of the post-World War II era. The story of Connecticut’s connection with modern art and architecture starts about 15 years earlier in 1927 when Chick Austin was appointed Executive Director of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT and in 1933 when Alexander Calder moved his studio from Paris, France to Roxbury, CT. The influence, genius, and clout of these two men laid the groundwork for the moves of other important figures in the fields of art and architecture to the Nutmeg State.
Connecticut’s proximity to New York City made the state a fertile ground for postwar suburban expansion. Not only were many homes being built, but public spaces like the ones on this tour were constructed to serve a swelling population. As a result, the artists and architects addressed in this tour, including Phillip Johnson, Landis Gores, Marcel Breuer, Sol LeWitt, Louis Kahn, and Wallace Harrison, found plenty of work in the state.
This driving tour complements the Bruce Museum’s exhibition, Connecticut Modern: Art, Design, and the Avant-Garde, 1930-1960 (September 23, 2023 to January 7, 2024). While the sites below are listed in an order specific to their period and location, they can be toured in any order that suits you.
Photo of A. Everett Austin Jr. by George Platt Lynes, 1936.
Photograph Collection, RG9_1_F344,
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Archives, Hartford, CT.
Alexander Calder with Steel Fish, near his studio in Roxbury, CT, 1934
Photograph by James Thrall Soby
© 2023 Calder Foundation, New York
The Bruce Museum would like to thank the following people for their help in creating the Connecticut Modern Driving Tour:
Craig Bassam, Scott Fellows, and Tracy Seem, BassamFellows
Wendy Bayor, Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek
Bob Burns and Cecelia Feldman, Mattatuck Museum
Christa Carr, The Glass House
Roland Coffey, Yale University Art Gallery
Kristin Dwyer, The Yale Center for British Art
The Rev. Dr. David van Dyke, Ann Hart, and Jane Love, The First Presbyterian Church
Nancy Geary, New Canaan Museum & Historical Society
Beryl Gilothwest, Calder Foundation
Erin Monroe, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Meaghan Rosenblatt, Hotel Marcel
The Connecticut Modern Driving Tour is generously funded by a grant from the Connecticut Humanities Council.
