Tucked into the hills of southern New Hampshire, on the slopes of a mountain that once drew skiers and before that yielded granite to quarrymen, there is a place unlike anything else in New England. More than 100 sculptures, created by artists from 50 countries across more than two decades, are woven into 140 acres of forested trails and meadow overlooks on Potanipo Hill in Brookline. There is no admission charge. The gates open at dawn and close at dusk, every day of the year. And most people in New Hampshire, let alone the rest of New England, have never heard of it.
The Andres Institute of Art has earned the distinction of being the largest outdoor sculpture park in New England, but it carries that title with a quiet confidence entirely in keeping with its character. As CBS Boston recently highlighted, the institute is gaining wider recognition as a destination for art lovers and outdoor enthusiasts alike, drawing visitors from across the region to what has become one of the most unusual and rewarding cultural experiences in the Granite State.
A Mountain, a Vision, and Two Unlikely Partners
The story of the Andres Institute begins in 1996, when an engineer and innovator named Paul Andres purchased Big Bear Mountain in Brookline, New Hampshire, and moved into a house near its summit. Andres had spent his career building things, but what drew him to the mountain was something less calculated: a deep love of nature and a growing passion for art. He began purchasing sculptures to place in the natural setting around his home.
Around the same time, a master sculptor named John M. Weidman had been living in Brookline for years, developing a reputation for his craft in the small town southwest of Nashua. Word of Andres’s interest in sculpture reached Weidman, and the two men began talking. The conversation that followed changed both of their lives, and ultimately transformed a New Hampshire mountainside into something that has no real equivalent in the region.
In 1998, Andres and Weidman co-founded the Andres Institute of Art as a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization. Their ambition from the beginning was not merely to display sculpture but to create it on-site, engaging artists from around the world in the act of making work specifically for this place. The mountain would not just be a backdrop for art. It would be a collaborator.
The Bridges and Connections Symposium
The engine that has built the institute’s collection over nearly three decades is the annual Bridges and Connections International Sculpture Symposium. Each year since 1998, the institute has invited artists to come to Brookline for two weeks to create sculptures that become permanent additions to the collection. The program has drawn sculptors from Lithuania, Latvia, England, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Egypt, Greece, Chile, and dozens of other countries, as well as from states across the United States.
To date, the symposium has produced 104 works by artists representing 50 countries. Each piece reflects both the artist’s individual voice and their engagement with the specific landscape of Potanipo Hill, the quality of light in southern New Hampshire, the character of the forest and the stone, and the conversations that unfold when artists from vastly different cultures share two weeks on the same mountain.
The result is a collection that feels genuinely international in its range and yet deeply rooted in its particular place. Visitors walking the trails encounter welded steel and carved stone, abstract forms and recognizable figures, monumental works that command hilltop clearings and intimate pieces that seem to have grown organically from the forest floor. No two visits yield the same experience, because the light changes, the seasons change, and the sculptures themselves weather and age in ways that make them feel increasingly part of the landscape.
What a Visit Looks Like
The Andres Institute of Art is located at 106 Route 13 in Brookline, about 25 minutes west of Nashua and roughly an hour from Boston. Visitors park near the base of the hill, where the former ski lodge now serves as the institute’s welcome center. The second floor of the lodge houses the Big Bear Lodge performance center, which the institute uses for concerts and musical performances featuring local and touring acts throughout the warmer months.
Eleven hiking trails fan out across the 140-acre property, ranging in difficulty from easy loops accessible to casual walkers to more demanding routes that climb to panoramic overlooks. The trails are well-maintained and marked, though the institute retains the feel of a wild place rather than a manicured park. Twelve miles of paths thread through the property, and sculptures appear along each of them in different configurations and settings.
There is no formal map that tells visitors what to look for or in what order. The experience is exploratory by design. You might round a corner on a forested trail and find yourself face to face with a massive steel figure. You might climb to a rocky overlook and discover a delicate stone work balanced at the edge of the view. The sculptures are sited to reward attention and to change your relationship to the landscape around them, not simply to be looked at but to make you look at everything differently.
The institute is free and open every day from dawn to dusk. There is no gift shop. There is no cafe. The experience is entirely about the art and the mountain, unmediated by the apparatus of conventional tourism.
A Former Ski Area Reborn
For visitors of a certain age, or for longtime southern New Hampshire residents, the name Big Bear Mountain carries memories of a different kind. The site operated as a local ski area for years before closing, and the ski trails that were cut into the hillside decades ago are now part of the institute’s trail network. The old ski lodge, refurbished and repurposed, anchors the visitor experience at the base of the hill.
Before the ski area, the mountain had another identity: it was a granite quarry, and evidence of that earlier industrial use can still be found in the landscape. The combination of geological history, ski-era infrastructure, and contemporary art creates a layered experience that is unique to this place. Walking the trails at the Andres Institute, you are walking through multiple chapters of New Hampshire history, not just visiting a gallery.
That layering gives the institute a depth that purely purpose-built art spaces often lack. The mountain has been worked and loved and changed by many hands over many years, and the sculptures that have been added to it over the past quarter-century are the latest chapter in a long story.
Why It Matters for New Hampshire
The Andres Institute of Art is a remarkable cultural institution by any measure, but it is particularly notable in the context of New Hampshire’s arts landscape. The state does not have a major contemporary art museum. Its art institutions tend to be small and locally focused. The Andres Institute, with its international collection and its decades of drawing artists from around the world to a small town in southern New Hampshire, represents something genuinely unusual: a world-class cultural destination that grew not from a major city or a wealthy endowment but from one man’s decision to put art on a mountain he loved.
That origin story matters because it suggests something about what is possible in rural and small-town New England. Cultural institutions do not have to be urban, well-funded, or conventionally structured to do meaningful work. The Andres Institute has been doing meaningful work for nearly 30 years on a shoestring, sustained by the vision of its founders and the labor of artists who come from around the world because the opportunity to create something permanent in a beautiful place has an appeal that transcends geography or financial incentive.
For New Hampshire residents, the institute offers an easy answer to a question that is often posed about rural life: where is the culture? It is on a mountainside in Brookline, free and open every day, waiting to be discovered.
Planning a Visit
Memorial Day weekend marks the informal start of New England’s outdoor season, making late May an excellent time to visit the Andres Institute for the first time. The spring foliage is fully out, the trails are at their most welcoming, and the sculptures that spent the winter under snow are freshly emerged. The light on the hill in late afternoon can be particularly striking.
Visitors should wear comfortable shoes suitable for uneven terrain. The trails are not paved, and some sections are steep. Dogs are welcome on leash. The institute asks visitors to stay on established trails to protect both the artwork and the natural environment.
The address is 106 Route 13, Brookline, NH 03033. There is no phone number listed for general inquiries, and the institute’s website at andresinstitute.org is the best source for current information on hours, events, and any scheduled performances at the Big Bear Lodge.
For those who have never visited, the Andres Institute is one of those places that is difficult to fully describe because the experience of being there is so different from the experience of reading about it. The combination of outdoor hiking, international sculpture, and the specific quality of light and landscape on Potanipo Hill adds up to something that has no real equivalent anywhere else in New England. And it is free. That alone makes it worth the drive.
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Where is the Andres Institute of Art located?
The Andres Institute of Art is located at 106 Route 13 in Brookline, New Hampshire, approximately 25 minutes west of Nashua and about an hour from Boston. The site is on Potanipo Hill, formerly known as Big Bear Mountain, which previously operated as a local ski area.
How much does it cost to visit the Andres Institute of Art?
Admission to the Andres Institute of Art is completely free. The park is open every day from dawn to dusk, year-round. There is no ticket booth, gift shop, or entry fee of any kind. Visitors are welcome to explore the 140-acre property and its 100-plus sculptures at no charge.
What is the Bridges and Connections International Sculpture Symposium?
The Bridges and Connections International Sculpture Symposium is an annual program that has run since 1998. Each year, the Andres Institute invites artists from around the world to spend two weeks in Brookline creating sculptures that become permanent parts of the collection. To date, the symposium has produced 104 works by artists representing 50 countries.
What should visitors know before going to the Andres Institute of Art?
Visitors should wear sturdy shoes suitable for uneven and sometimes steep terrain, as the trails are natural rather than paved. Dogs are welcome on leash. The park has 12 miles of trails across 11 hiking routes of varying difficulty. There is no cafe or gift shop on site. The former ski lodge serves as a welcome center and performance venue for scheduled events.
Why is the Andres Institute considered the largest outdoor sculpture park in New England?
The Andres Institute of Art holds the distinction of being the largest outdoor sculpture park by area in New England, with more than 100 sculptures distributed across 140 acres. The size of the property, the number of works in the collection, and the international scope of the artists who created them set it apart from other outdoor art installations in the region.
Looking for more New Hampshire cultural destinations this season? See our guide to summer tourism highlights across the Granite State, our feature on the NH Ice Cream Trail with 69 stops statewide, and our report on the Bartlett Experimental Forest and advocates working to preserve it.
