New York Times - "Putting Connecticut Artists in the Spotlight"

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield will showcase works by people who live and work in New York's shadow.

By Annabel Keenan

Reporting from Ridgefield, Conn.

April 15, 2026

Just over an hour outside New York City in the quiet bedroom town of Ridgefield, Conn., the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum faces a conundrum. So close to New York, it competes for attention with some of the world’s top museums.

To be fair, the Aldrich is no small fish. It has made a name for itself with groundbreaking exhibitions like “Twenty Six Contemporary Women Artists,” a 1971 survey that the museum said was the first in the United States to focus on female artists, as well as “52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone,” the acclaimed 2022 show that revisited this moment, adding the next generation of nonbinary or female-identifying artists to the mix.

“Still, in a way, it’d be easier if we were hours from a city,” said Amy Smith-Stewart, chief curator of the Aldrich. “People take for granted what they have in their backyard.”

This June, the museum is planning the “Aldrich Decennial: I am what is around me,” an exhibition that it hopes will remind visitors of its position as a world-class institution and also of the vibrant creative community in Connecticut.

Curated by Smith-Stewart and Caitlin Monachino, the show will feature artists living and working in the state. As its title suggests, the exhibition will return every 10 years, an ambitious marker of the museum’s commitment to supporting its neighbors.

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