Domestic Travel

With the Art Institute as your guide, embark on a voyage to uncover the globe's diverse cultural traditions.

View from 21st Street. The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia. © The Barnes Foundation.

Philadelphia and the Brandywine Valley: Art, Artists, and the New Barnes Foundation May 22–26, 2013 Popular tour leader Lisa Hahn leads this adventure in the City of Brotherly Love. Highlights include visits to the newly opened Philadelphia campus of the Barnes Foundation, the Fabric Workshop and Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art. On a full-day excursion to the historic Brandywine River Valley, visit the Civil War–era Brandywine River Museum and majestic Longwood Garden, and enjoy a special decorative arts tour of the Winterthur Museum in neighboring Delaware. Visits to artists' studios, galleries, and private collections complete this art-filled itinerary. Accommodations are at the LEED Gold–certified Hotel Palomar.

The Breakers, Rhode Island. Courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County.

Artistic Riches of Rhode Island: Newport and Providence June 10–14, 2013 Experience the art, architecture, and storied past of historic Newport and modern Providence. Enjoy stops at Touro Synagogue, the Museum of Newport History, and the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, the oldest surviving house in Newport. Visit glorious Gilded Age estates, including the grandest of Newport's summer "cottages"—the Breakers and Rough Point, the legendary estate of Doris Duke. Tour the National Museum of American Illustration, founded in 1998 by Laurence and Judy Cutler, which holds the largest private collection of works by Maxfield Parrish, Norman Rockwell, and many others. In Providence, tour the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design and the John Brown House Museum; take an architectural walking tour of historic Benefit Street; and visit two of Providence's most significant private collections.

Deborah Butterfield. Sugi (#1122.1), 1997. Courtesy of the artist.

Masters of the New West: Private Homes and Artist Studios of Montana September 8–12, 2013 Discover the vibrant art and spectacular scenery of Montana with Meg MacDonald. Start in Helena, a former mining town founded in 1864 with the discovery of gold. Today, Helena still only has a population of about 30,000 but packs an astounding punch as a lively arts community and is recognized as one of the best small cities for contemporary art in the country. Highlights include a visit to a prominent private collection of contempo¬rary art; a reception and viewing of the current show at Turman Larison Contemporary Gallery; and private tours of the Archie Bray Foundation and the Poindexter Collection. Enjoy a specially arranged after-hours tour and dinner at the Holter Museum of Art, considered to be one of the best contemporary art museums in the Northwest. Visit the studios of the area's most celebrated artists, including abstract printmaker Phoebe Toland and political activist and sculptor Richard Notkin, as well as other noted Montana artists. In Bozeman, tour the impressive Emerson Center for the Arts and visit several artists' studios, including the studio of internationally renowned sculptor Deborah Butterfield and her husband, artist John Buck. An excursion to an artist's studio in a nearby ghost town and dinner at a private ranch with an eclectic collection complete this art-filled itinerary.

The de Young Museum, San Francisco. © Michael Layefsky 2009.

Seeing San Francisco: Art, Artists, and Private Collections of San Francisco and the Bay Area October 25–29, 2013 Experience northern California's thriving art scene with Joan Arenberg. View special exhibitions including In Grand Style: Celebrations in Korean Art at the Asian Art Museum, Beyond Belief: 100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, and David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition at the de Young Museum. On a full-day excursion to the Napa Valley, visit the exclusive Oliver Ranch, a 100-acre compound where visiting artists, including Ann Hamilton, Andy Goldsworthy, Bruce Nauman, Martin Puryear, and Richard Serra, are invited to create site-specific works that respond to the land. Tour the diverse murals of the Mission District with artist, curator, and author of Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo Annice Jacoby, and learn about the Workshop Residence, a facility in the up-and-coming Dogpatch neigh¬borhood that engages the worlds of craft, art, and design by pairing visiting artists and designers with local fabricators to create beautiful, useful, and affordable objects. A reception in an art-filled home in Russian Hill; a tour of the museum-quality Don and Doris Fisher Collection, housed in the Gap's corporate headquarters; and a visit to one of the most important private collections of 20th-century American art in the Bay Area enhance this artistic excursion.