• One-hour tour recommended for Pre-K through Grade 12 and beyond
• Hill-Stead Highlights will transport you and your students to an era of horses and carriages, gas lamps, and the Impressionists.

Description & Lesson Plan:

Engage your students in the exploration of history, art, and architecture as they tour the 1901 Colonial Revival home of the Pope and Riddle families. Learn about the family as industrialists, world travelers, art collectors, and philanthropists. Hear the stories of their late-1880s Grand Tour of Europe. Discover the Pope family’s collection of art treasures, most notably the works of Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, James McNeill Whistler, the bronze sculptures of Antoine-Louis Barye, and the many decorative arts that grace this expansive home. Theodate Pope Riddle was one of America’s pioneering women architects; this tour presents a memorable look at one of her greatest accomplishments – her family home. 

This tour is designed to align with a range of national learning standards including the Common Core State Standards and the National Core Arts Standards.

Learning Objectives

Students will participate in an engaging, interactive museum visit that explores the history, art and architecture of the setting. Tours are conducted in an age-appropriate fashion that will enhance visual literacy through the examination of stimulating works of art.

• History: Students explore a historic home that connects them to the past while understanding its relevance today. The Industrial Revolution was a time of great socioeconomic change that influenced the Popes as well. Mr. Pope worked his success in the expansion of the railroad system. Hill-Stead is a museum that serves as a touchstone to the heritage of the agricultural past while graciously incorporating modern conveniences of post-industrial technologies.
• Art: Students observe an internationally-renowned collection and explore how it tells stories and communicates ideas that are relevant to the historical context as well as to contemporary issues. Students will understand the need for preservation of the cultural treasures from our past as they gain an appreciation for seeing authentic objects in a historical domestic context.
• Architecture: Students will recognize museum founder, Theodate Pope Riddle, as an independent woman, and as the noteworthy female architect who designed Hill-Stead as well as numerous other distinguished structures.

View the specific standards addressed in this tour.

• One-hour tour recommended for Pre-K through Grade 12 and beyond
• Meet Monet and friends at Hill-Stead.

Description & Lesson Plan:

Take a close, critical, and unhurried look at some of the most significant paintings in the history of art: works by Impressionist masters. See the art as the family that traveled the world to find them did. Discover Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, and the works of American artist James McNeill Whistler, all collected by Alfred Atmore Pope for the enjoyment of his family, friends, and guests—like you! Study the Popes’ collection of 18th- to 19th-century Japanese woodblock prints. Learn from family correspondence about the friendships the Pope family made with the leading artists of the day, including Monet, Whistler, and Cassatt. Tour the home, and consider how life in a genteel drawing room of the early 20th century compares to today’s world.

This tour is designed to align with a range of national learning standards including the Common Core State Standards and the National Core Arts Standards. 

Learning Objectives

Students will learn about the Impressionist artists, known for their sketch-like brushwork and juxtaposition of bright colors to represent the effect of light on objects. Students will also learn how this style was in contrast to academic art favored by the jurors of the Paris salon. The Hill-Stead school group tour is highlighted with visual literacy exercises where students will describe, analyze, interpret, and judge selected works of art.

• Impressionists: Students will view original paintings and pastels by noted masters, and come to appreciate the similarities and differences between their individual paintings. Students will become familiar with the sketch-like brushwork, simplified forms, and en plein air technique of this group of pioneering artists. Contemplating the canvases takes on additional meaning as students learn about the special relationship that the Popes shared with many of the artists in this community of Impressionists. Impressionist art will be compared to Japanese woodblock prints, a genre inspirational to these noted artists. Students will observe and discuss the elements of art rendered in the paintings and the prints.
• Subject Matter:  The subject matter of the Impressionists was of contemporary and everyday life. The artists continued many traditions, but also broke away in new directions, focusing on outdoor light.
• Elements of Art: Students will learn about these building blocks of art and examine how the Impressionists applied them when creating their works of art. Students will also consider and examine the various palettes and techniques used by the Impressionists.  Museum Educators will facilitate a discussion using visual thinking strategies to compare works of art and analyze the merits of a particular artist’s choices.

View the specific standards addressed in this tour.

• 1-hour tour recommended for Grades 6 through Grade 12 and beyond
• Les Peintures! Les Sculptures! Les Estampes! Students will find France in Farmington!
• Give your students even more of France with a 15-minute trip to Hill-Stead’s archive to view rarely seen artifacts from our archival collection.

Description & Lesson Plan:

Hear the stories of the Popes’ travels in France, during their 1888-89 Grand Tour, and their fervent collecting of objects from France that followed. View Monet’s en plein air paintings of the Giverny countryside, Degas’ jockeys and ballerinas, Manet’s scenes from bohemian life and Eugène Carrière’s woman with a red flower. Tour Hill-Stead, the Pope family’s 1901 Farmington home, the lavish showcase for their extraordinary collection.

While the tour is conducted in English, it includes French vocabulary and introduces World Language students to important aspects of French culture.  French-speaking guides are available by request pending guide availability.

This tour is designed to align with a range of national learning standards including the Common Core State Standards, the National Core Arts Standards and the Connecticut World Language Curriculum Framework.

Les Peintures! Les Sculptures! Les Estampes!

Students find a French connection in Farmington as they discover the exceptional collection of paintings, prints and sculptures created by French artists on display in situ at the museum. Featured artists include Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Eugène Carrière, Henri Matisse, Jean-François Millet, Puvis de Chavannes, and Antoine-Louis Barye.

Learning Objectives

Students will learn about the Pope family’s 1888 to 1889 Grand Tour of Europe,  where they acquired many of the French objects in the collection.

• Historical Connections: Students will discover associations between Hill-Stead — the American Colonial Revival house and estate designed by Theodate Pope Riddle, and the French culture of the late nineteenth century represented in the exceptional art collection showcased at the museum.
• Impressionism: Through observations and discussion of the nineteenth-century French art in Hill-Stead’s collection, students will explore, the influence Édouard Manet and the Impressionist painters had on the modern art movement.  The painters will be explored as a group of daring artists who resisted the academic art style that conformed to the French Academy.

View the specific standards addressed in this tour.