The White Mountains, Provincetown, Old Lyme, Newport, and Monhegan Island: these names evoke diverse images of New England - images interpreted by such American artists as Martin Johnson Heade, Eastman Johnson, Frank Benson, Willard Metcalf, George Bellows, and Rockwell Kent. The region's mountains, valleys, salt marshes, and harbors, as well as its villages, cities, and people inspired artists' representations in varied styles - for instance, Fitz Hugh Lane's luminist landscapes, Childe Hassam's impressionist seascapes, John Marin's abstractions, and Edward Hopper's realist works. Envisioning New England explores the period from 1850 to 1950 and looks at both the role of American artists in New England and the origins of the member institutions of the Consortium of New England Community Art Museums, their shared histories, and how they reflect the arts of New England. The Consortium is comprised of fourteen New England cultural institutions, renowned and lesser-known, in five states. The Art Complex Museum, Bennington Museum, Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Danforth Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, Fitchburg Art Museum, Florence Griswold Museum, Fruitlands Museums, Fuller Museum of Art, Lyman Allyn Art Museum, Mattatuck Museum, New Britain Museum of American Art, Newport Art Museum and Art Association, and Provincetown Art Association and Museum have banded together to mount a traveling exhibition including several of each member's treasured paintings. Envisioning New England presents these prized works, com plemented by essays by Nancy Whipple Grinnell, Curator, Newport Art Museum; Jack Becker, Director, Cheekwood Museum of Art; and Stephanie Upton, Executive Director Consortium of New England Community Art Museums.