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Mansfield, Connecticut / United States

Mansfield is a town in Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 26,543 at the 2010 census. Mansfield was incorporated in October 1702 from the Town of Windham, in Hartford County. The community was named after Major Moses Mansfield, a part owner of the town site. When Windham County was formed on 12 May 1726, Mansfield then became part of that county. A century later, at a town meeting on 3 April 1826, selectmen voted to ask the General Assembly to annex Mansfield to Tolland County. That occurred the following year. The town of Mansfield contains the community of Storrs, which is home to the main campus of the University of Connecticut and the associated Connecticut Repertory Theatre.

William Benton Museum of Art

Mansfield, Connecticut / United States

The William Benton Museum of Art is a public fine arts museum located on the University of Connecticut's main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, US. The Benton houses a permanent collection of over 6,500 artistic works and hosts special exhibitions, concerts, campus art walks, and other events. The museum is named in honor of the prominent U.S. senator and university trustee William Benton. The Benton has a cafe and a gift store. Admission to the museum is free for all.Constructed in 1920 and used for twenty years as University's main dining hall, the Benton opened officially as an art museum in 1967. The museum building is designed in the Collegiate Gothic style and is one of the core campus buildings in the University of Connecticut Historic District-Connecticut Agricultural School, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.The Benton's collection originated with former Connecticut Agricultural College president Charles Lewis Beach, who began the college's art collection, bequeathed his personal collection of American art to the college in 1933, and left a trust fund for the college to continue acquiring art. Developed over the ensuing decades, the museum's permanent collection includes works by Childe Hassam, Henry Ward Ranger, Emil Carlson, Charles Harold Davis, Ernest Lawson, Ellen Emmet Rand, Guy Wiggins, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Hart Benton, Fairfield Porter, George Bellows, Gustav Klimt, Rembrandt Peale, Georges Braque, Edward Burne-Jones, Reginald Marsh, Käthe-Kollwitz, Arthur Bowen Davies, Maurice Prendergast and Kiki Smith. The collection is strongest in modern and American art, but some works date to the Renaissance, and exhibits are highly diverse.