The Housatonic Valley Art League, a tax-exempt, non-profit corporation (501c3), grew out of the Sheffield Art League, which was founded in 1974 as a collaborative association of artists and art supporters of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and nearby Connecticut and New York. The League sponsors a program of art workshops, demonstrations and lectures, annual juried art shows and co-sponsors events that focus on art, local history and natural resources of the region. HVAL also sponsors an annual scholarship program for high school seniors.

Here's our mission statement:

The Housatonic Valley Art League (formerly known as the Sheffield Art League) is a collaborative association of artists and art supporters organized for educational and charitable purposes in order to foster the creation and appreciation of the visual arts in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and nearby Connecticut and New York, and to cooperate with other area organizations on projects that promote the artistic, historical and cultural heritage of the Upper Housatonic Valley region.

With a growing membership spanning an increasingly wider geographical area, combined with a desire to offer events closer and more convenient for local groups, members of HVAL are now beginning to organize into Connecticut, North and South County regional chapters. More details about who to contact for offerings of workshops, paintouts, demonstrations and shows will soon be available here, as the chapters take shape.

Our recent community project Housatonic River Summer 2004 was hugely successful at bringing together organizations in our region in the realms of art, environment, education, history and religion. The book Art and the River, which we published as part of that project, is still available in its soft-cover edition.