Clark Art Installation on 250 Years of Art in Mass

08:14AM / Friday, September 26, 2025Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Clark Art Institute continues its new series of year-round public installations, Paginations, featuring works drawn from the Clark library's extensive holdings and curated by members of the library staff.

The installations are featured in a newly designed space located in the Manton Research Center's reading room, just outside the entrance to the Clark's library and are on view for free during all open hours.

On view Sept. 26 through Nov. 16, Back Bay to the Berkshires: Celebrating 250 Years of Art in Massachusetts looks at some of the artists and artistic innovations associated with the Bay State through their relationships with book illustration, printing, and publishing. This display is held in conjunction with MA250, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' commemoration of the semiquincentennial of the American revolution, and highlights the revolutionary spirit upon which the state was founded.

The Clark's library is widely recognized as one of the most important art history collections in North America, holding nearly 300,000 volumes in over 130 languages. The library's encyclopedic collection includes a number of special collections, including rare books, artist's books, decorative arts, photomechanical reproductions, and the world's only collection of ephemeral materials from the Venice Biennale.

From its opening in 1962, the library has grown and changed to accommodate teaching spaces, visual resources, new programs and initiatives, and a never-ending array of new technologies. The library—one of the few remaining open stack art history libraries in the nation—is open to the public Mondays through Fridays from 9 am to 5 pm.

The library is housed in the Manton Research Center building and serves a wide array of patrons, including scholars, students, and researchers. Appointments can be arranged to explore special collections materials and library staff members are always happy to assist visitors in finding specific items of interest.

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Williamstown Select Board Evaluates Town Manager

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:39AM / Wednesday, October 28, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — In 2022, the town still was recovering from the twin blows of a global pandemic and a lawsuit that exposed disturbing allegations against the town's police department.

The latter ultimately led to the resignation of the police chief and the town manager. To replace the manager, the Select Board at the time turned to Robert Menicocci.

Menicocci represented a break in style from his immediate predecessor, who was a more prominent voice in town government. That prominence, in part, was a product of the times: When town boards and committees were not meeting in-person and access to town hall itself was limited at the height of the pandemic, the manager's voice in Zoom meetings was more front and center.

In his four years in the corner office, Menicocci has helped shepherd the police department on its path to certification and helped the town weather the fiscal storm of skyrocketing costs linked to inflation – particularly sharp increases in the cost of health insurance that hit hard for a labor-intensive endeavor like municipal government. All the while, he has been a little more taciturn, while always willing to participate, when appropriate, with responsive answers in discussions of the Select Board and Finance Committee.

On Monday, the current Select Board – completely turned over from the 2022 edition – pushed Menicocci to be more of a cheerleader for the town.

"Do you see your role more as a behind-the-scenes guy and our role is to be out in public?" board member Matthew Neely asked Menicocci during the board's review of the manager's job performance. "Or is there more of a role for you in that? So many people, if I say your name, they're like, ‘Who?'

"I would have assumed your role would be more public facing as well, and more, for lack of a better word, leading the charge as opposed to running day-to-day operations. I feel you're strong running day-to-day. But something we all wish is we had a little more of a proactive [manager] …. Since we need development, need all these things in town so much. … I'd love to see more outward energy, I guess.

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