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City Hall Galleries

The galleries at Boston City Hall promote and exhibit the work of Boston area artists.

You can find information about the galleries, as well as what's currently showing, on this page.

Current and upcoming exhibits

Exhibits
  • Location: The Scollay Square Gallery, 3rd Floor Boston City Hall
  • Dates: July 18 - August 30, 2023

There are eight artists in The Chinese American Fine Arts Society who are exhibiting their artistic spirit in different media, including oil painting, watercolor painting, and Chinese painting. This exhibit also includes works of Chinese calligraphy.

Installation view of "Art and Spirit" by The Chinese American Fine Arts Society
Installation view of "Art and Spirit" by The Chinese American Fine Arts Society

To learn more or inquire to purchase this art, contact: Mikemei88@yahoo.com

  • Location: The Mayor's Gallery, 5th Floor Boston City Hall
  • Dates: July 18 - August 30, 2023

Janet Hansen Kawada's work explores the relationship of texture, color and narrative through fibers.  She is presenting her fiber work alongside the family influences of her mother, the late Charlotte Lockwood, a painter also influenced by nature. Both are life-long residents of the Boston area.  

"Memories and Thoughts" by Janet Kawada
Memories and Thoughts, mixed media felted drawing, 30" x 24", 2019

Janet Kawada has a lifelong love of the Fiber Arts.  She shares:  "Being taught by my grandmother to sew, knit, crochet, embroider, etc., as a child, I was never without knitting needles or needle and thread all through my early and teenage years."  She then embarked on a journey as a professional quilter for about 10 years in her 20s.  Although she spent her childhood years at museums with her mother, Charlotte Lockwood, looking at art, she was self-taught, and in her 30s decided to go to art school.  Kawada studied at MassArt, graduating with a BFA in Fibers, and attended Vermont College earning an MFA in Visual Art.  In the 1990s, Kawada taught at New England School of Art and Design and taught at MassArt  for 25 years in the Fibers area of the 3DFA Department.  She was a member of the Kingston Gallery from 1998-2012 where she was director for 4 years.  A member of Studios Without Walls, an independent group of artists from around the Brookline area, she has been showing outdoor, environmental work since 2001.

Charlotte Lockwood received a BA from Jackson College (part of Tufts University) in Psychology.  She studied art at Wellesley College and with Priscilla Ordway.  She ran the Lockwood-Golub studio in Newton MA from the 1970s to the 1990s and taught privately until the early 2000s.  Lockwood was one of the few woman artists to compete in the Massachusetts Duck Stamp competition in early 2000.   A life-long observer of nature and painter, she summered in Rockport MA where she was a member of the Rockport Art Association.  She passed away in 2010.

To learn more or inquire to purchase this art, contact:  Jkawada@usa.net 

Website: janetkawada.com

Instagram: @cameinlikeawrappingball

  • Location: 3rd Floor Mezzanine, Boston City Hall
  • Dates: July 18 - August 30, 2023

SOUTHIE THEN AND NOW installation view, Mezzanine of Boston City Hall
SOUTHIE THEN AND NOW installation view
 

Since the 19th century South Boston remained a predominantly Irish Catholic working-class neighborhood, where for 30 years my grandmother lived and my father worked in the Gillette factory. I lived in “Southie” in the 1980-90s, documenting the community via photography and film. This exhibition reveals the neighborhood transformation, from a mostly low-to–moderate income community with industrial areas, to today’s gentrification with luxury condos and a radically shifted neighborhood identity, all while used as a Hollywood setting.

Community Forum on July 26, 2023 from 12 - 2 p.m. (Open to all to attend.)

Flyer for SOUTHIE THEN AND NOW community forum on July 26

  • Location: The Emerging Gallery, 8th Floor Boston City Hall
  • Dates: August 1 - 30, 2023

Fen specializes in landscape photography and her purpose for taking photography is to capture fond memories for herself, her friends, and family. In 2005, she started studying photography. In 2014, she joined The Chinese American Fine Arts Society, assisted Mr. George Moy to carry out photography classes, organized local outdoor photography trips and several photography trips to National parks. Within one year of joining CAFAS, she was nominated as president because of her strong passion for photography and the greater community.

Photograph of lavender fields with a mountain in the background
Photograph by Fenfang Mei
  • Location: 3rd Floor Mezzanine, Boston City Hall
  • Dates: Ongoing

We Belong is a light-based public art installation with the intent to promote ideas of belonging and inclusion among communities in Boston. In LED neon, the work forms the text “We Belong – here – together – guided by the same stars” in a circular format, with a constellation that maps and connects Boston’s neighborhoods.

With the support of a City of Boston Transformative Public Art grant, the installation will travel to multiple Boston neighborhoods in 2022-2023, beginning with the East Boston Social Centers from July-September 2022. Local residents are invited to participate in the project by sharing what the concept of “belonging” means to them.

We Belong by Yu-Wen Wu

Yu-Wen Wu is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Boston. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Wu’s subjectivity as an immigrant is central to her artwork. Arriving in the United States at an early age, her experiences have shaped her work in areas of migration—examining issues of displacement, arrival, assimilation, and the shape of identity in a new country. Passionate about data, mapping, and its storytelling, Wu’s work lies at the crossroads of art, science, politics, and social issues. Her wide range of projects include large-scale drawings, sculpture, site- specific video installations, community-engaged practices, and public art. Wu has been awarded numerous grants, exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work is included in several private and public collections.

The Mayor's Poetry Program is an annual program in which Boston residents are invited to submit poems to be displayed throughout City Hall and in an online gallery for one year. The theme for 2023, selected by Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola, was "Love".

Read the 2023 Poems

Poem Locations

All poems are displayed next to the elevators on the south side of Boston City Hall. On the fifth floor, there is only one poem displayed on the wall to the left of the Mayor's Office reception area.

First floor
  • "Facetime" by Vivienne Shalom
  • "Love in Downtown Crossing" by Ann Doyle
Second Floor
  • "Boston: Mother to the World Behind My Ears" by Clementine Zei

  • "I Want to Lay Alone With Love" by Zofia Provizer
Third Floor
  • "Jefferson Avenue" by Tashanna Edwards
  • "a calendar of solar and lunar eclipses" by Emily Li
Fifth Floor
  • "On Deserving" by Naomi Westwater
Sixth Floor
  • "In Memory of My Wounded Survivor" by Rachel Hammerman
  • "Carrots" by Fatima Seck
Seventh Floor
  • "Photographs" by Marsha Kaminsky
  • "Boston Grocery Store" by Allison Tervo
Eighth Floor
  • "On a walk in the neighborhood without my son" by Ariel Friedman
  • "The Quiet Lake" by Harry Yu
Ninth Floor
  • "When We Were Young" by Mayank Chugh
  • "For the Ones I Am (Re)membering" by CoCo Rosenberg

Artist Sophia Ainslie brightened up the eighth floor of City Hall with a new mural this past summer. As an extension of her project, she documented the reactions of City employees who walked by, and took photos of them with the mural.

Photo from Sophia Ainslie's mural exhibit

Gallery locations

Mayor's Art Gallery

The Mayor's Gallery exhibits work by Boston area artists who have received recognition for their artwork through grants, awards and other types of public display.

Directions: It's located on the 5th floor of City Hall. From City Hall Plaza or Congress St. entrances, take South Elevators to the 5th floor, follow signs to Mayor's Office: signage marks the gallery entrance. If you are planning to attend an opening you must enter from Congress Street.

Mayor’s Neighborhood Gallery

Directions: Located on the 2nd floor near the South Elevators. From City Hall Plaza or Congress St. entrances, take South Elevators to the 2nd floor.

Scollay Square Gallery

The Scollay Square Gallery showcases the many arts organizations and artists community groups that support local artists throughout the City.

Directions: It's located on the 3rd floor/main lobby of City Hall. When entering from Congress St, take elevators to 3rd floor, proceed through lobby, passing the information desk on your right. The gallery is ahead of you. When entering from City Hall Plaza, proceed through lobby, passing the information desk on your right. The gallery is ahead of you. Signage marks the gallery entrance. If you are planning to attend an opening you must enter from Congress Street.

The Emerging Gallery

This is the newest of City Hall's galleries. It showcases Boston's up and coming artists.

Directions: It is located on the 8th floor of City Hall. When entering from Congress Street or Cambridge Street, take the elevators to the 8th floor. The gallery is in the hallway to the left of Room 801, which is perpendicular to the elevators. 

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