Clark Art Hosts Opening Lecture for Bernice Abbott's Modern Lens

03:42PM / Tuesday, July 08, 2025Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Saturday, July 12, at 11 am, the Clark Art Institute celebrates the opening of its newest exhibition Berenice Abbott's Modern Lens with a free lecture.

Grace Hanselman, exhibition curator and curatorial assistant for works on paper, introduces the work of Berenice Abbott, a pioneering documentary photographer known best for her portraits of the Parisian avant-garde and striking snapshots of twentieth-century New York.

The talk takes place in the Manton Research Center auditorium.

In the 1920s, American-born Abbott worked as an assistant to Man Ray in Paris before her career as a portraitist solidified in its own right. In a major artistic pivot, she returned to the United States in 1929 to undertake her most celebrated project: documenting New York City's rapid urban transformation. Lesser-known but equally accomplished is her body of work photographing other cities and towns in the American Northeast.

This exhibition showcases selections from a 2007 gift of over 400 Abbott photographs, some iconic and rarely if ever exhibited, highlighting her enduring impact on modern photography.

Free. Accessible seats available. Advance registration required at clarkart.edu/events or call 413 458 0524.

Tags: Clark Art,

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Mount Greylock School Committee Hears Budget Requests, Pressures

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:32AM / Wednesday, February 18, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee Thursday heard the final rounds of fiscal year 2027 budget requests and heard why those — or any — discretionary increases in spending will be difficult in the year that begins July 1.

Williamstown Elementary Principal Benjamin Torres and middle-high school Principal Jake Schutz each presented the spending priorities formulated by their respective school councils. The requests followed a presentation by Lanesborough Elementary Principal Nolan Pratt at the January meeting.

Superintendent Joseph Bergeron then told the School Committee that state and federal aid to the district is going to be slightly lower than FY26 and reminded the panel that the district spent the last two years spending down its reserve accounts, as requested by the member towns, to the point where those reserves — School Choice, tuition and excess and deficiency — cannot be applied to the operating budget.

"Spending the exact same amount of money from this year to next year — that alone will mean a 4 percent increase [in appropriations] to each of our towns," Bergeron said. "That's the baseline on top of which everything else will happen.

"We know we're seeing an 8.75 percent increase in health insurance, but we also have an increasing number of employees who are taking our health insurance, so that health insurance line is increasing substantially. When it comes to out-of-district tuition as well as transportation, both of those are seeing marked increases as well."

District staff and the School Committee will further refine its FY27 budget over the next five weeks, with a budget workshop scheduled for Tuesday, March 3, and a public hearing and final budget vote on March 19.

The district's appropriations to Williamstown and Lanesborough, which each pay a proportional share of the prekindergarten-Grade 12 district's operating expenses, will face an up-or-down vote at each town's annual meeting, in May and June, respectively.

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