Having to schlep upstate via the subway, Metro-North Railroad, then a shuttle might make the trip seem more like a hassle than a peaceful retreat from the city. But despite the trek, there is an incredible institution upstate that will be worth your time: the Storm King Art Center. The institution is in close proximity to the neighboring Storm King Mountain, its namesake natural landmark located in New York’s Hudson Valley, and showcases what may very well be the largest collection of contemporary outdoor sculptures in the U.S. 

Storm King Art Center, commonly referred to as Storm King, is an open-air museum located in Mountainville, New York. The center’s first sculptures were exhibited around its main building in 1960, but as time passed, the collection expanded out into the hilly autumn landscape, of which the sculptures became an integral part. The landscape and the main house were redesigned in 1989 by landscape architect William Rutherford and his wife Joyce Rutherford. It was also later redesigned by Ralph E. Ogden’s — the founder of Storm King — previous business partner, Peter Stern, who had become the center’s chairman and president, and by David Collins, the center’s director. Stern continued to run the center after Ogden’s death in 1974, and added many of its most well-known pieces.

Storm King attracts a diverse crowd of visitors every day. The open-air museum spans an impressive 500 acres, in which visitors can experience larger-than-life artwork distributed among hills, meadows and forests. The result is an integration of art with nature, and nature with people — in other words, the quintessential fall canvas for a photographer.

Email Emma Li at [email protected].