By Anna Gerber

Often called the “city of neighborhoods,” Boston is home to 21 officially recognized neighborhoods brimming with history, art and attractions. While the Red Sox offer sports fans a mecca for baseball, Boston’s art scene is as rich as the city’s historical and sports traditions—complete with small, upstart galleries and “big league” national museums.

North End/Freedom Trail
Boston is rich with history dating back to its early-1600s settlement. The Freedom Trail, a 2.5-mile brick path that passes through 16 of Boston’s most notable historical sites, is a great way to get acclimated with the city. The Freedom Trail Walking Tour (www.thefreedomtrail.org) begins at Boston Common and snakes through the North End neighborhood, offering the simplest way to acclimate oneself to Boston’s atmosphere. The aptly-named North End Gallery (www.northendgallery.com) on Hanover Street has an array of art that reflects both the history of the neighborhood and the Italian heritage of its residents.


The Museum of Fine Arts

Fenway-Kenmore
Most commonly recognized as home of the Boston Red Sox, the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood on the west side is filled with academic institutions and big-name galleries. Home to Boston University and Northeastern, the neighborhood also features the Art Institute of Boston and the New England School of Photography.

The Museum of Fine Arts (www.mfa.org) on Huntington Avenue is one of the biggest art museums in the United States, attracting more than 1 million visitors a year. In the past, the museum has boasted notable exhibitions of Winslow Homer, Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh. This November, the museum is opening a new space, the Art of Americas Wing, which will be home to new and old displays of American art, including gold, paintings and period rooms.

Just down the street from the MFA, The Massachusetts College of Art and Design (www.massart.edu), known as Mass Art, doubles as both an art school and a venue for students to flex their creative muscles. The school’s seven gallery spaces regularly showcase work by students, faculty, staff and alumni, as well as that of emerging and acclaimed artists.

Around the corner, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (www.gardnermuseum.org) is named after its founder, a Boston philanthropist that endowed the museum before curating the collection and designing the building. Also known as Fenway Court, the museum has remained virtually unchanged since Gardner’s death in 1924. The museum collection is a reflection of Gardner’s personal taste – spanning more than 30 centuries – and includes paintings, sculptures, tapestries, furniture and decorative arts. The beautiful building, designed to mimic a 15th-century Venetian palace, consists of three floors of galleries that surround a glass-roofed courtyard with blooming flowers every season.



Vulture by Francesca DiMattio, 2006

South End/Jamaica Plain
The South End and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods have both recently emerged as contemporary art districts. These neighborhoods are small and toward the outer edge of the city, but their intricacies make them worth a closer look.

The South End neighborhood boasts a fascinating arts complex that houses performance spaces, restaurants, a gallery, the headquarters of the Boston Ballet, the Community Music Center and more. Founded in 1970 as part of the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s effort to revitalize the area, The Boston Center for the Arts (www.bcaonline.org) is a nonprofit visual and performing arts complex that occupies a historic city block flanked by Tremont Street, Clarendon Street, Warren Avenue and Berkeley Street. The BCA is home to a noncommercial gallery with three separate spaces. Its Mills Gallery accommodates five major exhibitions a year, featuring established and emerging visual artists from all over the world.

During the 1980s, the downtrodden Jamaica Plain neighborhood experienced an urban renewal when lower rent prices brought students to the area. The young energy revitalized the location, infusing it with galleries, bookstores and arts centers. The Jamaica Plain’s contemporary art museums are uniquely quirky. The Hallway (www.thehallwayjp.com), an appropriately named narrow corridor gallery, is only 1 year old and offers a space like no other in the city.

Also, the Axiom Center for New and Experimental Media is dedicated exclusively to showcasing emerging and established artists working in new media, including innovative exhibitions and experimental performance.

Waterfront/South Boston
The Waterfront area of Boston features picturesque views of the Atlantic Ocean, and lots of water-based activities. Just a short walk from downtown, near the acclaimed Anthony’s Pier 4 restaurant, The Institute of Contemporary Art (www.icaboston.org) is the picture of modern art, both inside and out. The ICA’s unique building was built on the waterfront in 1996, after it relocated from the Back Bay neighborhood. The new structure is a geometric building made of glass and steel with an open view that allows it to blend into the view of the harbor. ICA was originally founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art, and to this day, still strives to live up to its original mission of sharing the creative process of contemporary art.


The Museum of Modern Art

Nearby South Boston is known for jazz music and also plays host to plenty of emerging artists, especially those of “SoWa.” SoWa, short for “South of Washington Street,” is a strip that houses the neighborhood’s young, hip art scene. The SoWa Art Walk (www.sowaartwalk.com), offered the first Friday of each month during the summer, offers visitors a chance to see SoWa Artists Guild members in their work environment as they open their studios, mostly on Harrison Avenue.

Anna Gerber is a contributing writer for CityScene.



Notable Summer Exhibitions
Museum of Fine Arts
July 28, 2010 - May 1, 2011
Nicholas Nixon: Family Album
From renowned documentary photographer Nicholas Nixon, this exhibit features an intimate collection of photographs of his close-knit family.

Institute of Contemporary Art
July 3 - August 14
Francesca DiMattio
The New York-based painter combines imagery from a wide range of architectural, decorative and art historical sources. Her paintings are tied together with underlying patterns to construct complicated compositions. (see image above)




images c/o  Tony Rinaldo images