New York State: the Empire State offers art and history along its highways and byways

Natural History, May, 2002

A favorite vacation spot in New York State (800-call-nys; www.iloveny.com) is the Hudson Valley Region, just a short drive from New York City. The Hudson, one of the first rivers that explorers encountered in the New Word, is famous for its natural beauty, which once inspired a group of nineteenth-century painters known as the Hudson River School.

Begin your journey in the town of Hudson, home to the Olana State Historic Site (518-828-0135; www.nysparks. state.ny.us/hist), the estate of Frederic Church, a leading member of the Hudson River School. Begun in 1870, Church's Persian-style estate took two years to build and four years to decorate. Visitors can tour the home and the 250 acres surrounding it from April through October.

Continue your exploration of the Hudson River School at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (845-437-5237; www.fllac.vassar.edu) on the campus of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie. Here you may view more than forty works of art by the Hudson River School painters Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, Thomas Cole, Jasper Cropsey, Asher Durand, and George Inness.

If twentieth-century art is more to your liking, visit the Storm King Art Center (845-534-3115; www.stormking. org), where major pieces of post-1945 sculpture are displayed in an extraordinary, natural setting. Works include 120 large sculptures by such artists as Calder, Moore, Nevelson, Noguchi, and Smith. A winding, scenic drive up Storm King Highway, just off Route 218, leads to the museum and its 500 acres.

Kykuit (914-631-8200; www.hudsonvalley.org), home to four generations of the Rockefeller family, also showcases an exceptional collection of twentieth-century sculpture set in lush formal gardens with stone terraces and fountains. Now a historic site of the National Trust, Kykuit overlooks the Hudson River. The house is full of artistic treasures collected by the family throughout the years, including paintings, fine furniture, and Chinese ceramics, and the barn has horse-drawn vehicles as well as classic automobiles.