Grundmann Studios

Grundmann Studios (1893–1917) in Boston, Massachusetts, was a building on Clarendon Street in the Back Bay. It contained artist's workspaces and multipurpose function rooms Copley Hall and Allston Hall. Prior to 1893, it functioned as a skating rink;^{[note 1]} after the Boston Art Students' Association leased the building it was renamed in honor of local art educator Emil Otto Grundmann.^[2] The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose campus was adjacent, owned the property.^[3] Tenants included the Copley Society (formerly Boston Art Students' Association); artists Henry R. Blaney,^[4] Herman Dudley Murphy,^[5] Frank Richmond,^[6] Mary Bradish Titcomb;^[7] sculptor John A. Wilson, architect Josephine Wright Chapman; and the College Club.^[8][9]

Sculptor Max Bachmann's studio

Grundmann Studios, 1894

Location in Copley Square.

Ralph Adams Cram, architect and member of BASA, was charged with remodeling the interior. The first floor included club rooms—library, parlor, smoking room and life class room—and two large halls, each lit with "an immense skylight or glass roof". The larger room, Copley Hall, could seat up to eight hundred people and was used for lectures, concerts, dancing parties and art exhibitions. The smaller Allston Hall was designed for use as a picture gallery or supper room. It was connected by dumbwaiter to the basement kitchen. The second floor contained thirty-four suites of one, two, or three rooms, described as "so delightfully picturesque, with little, overhanging galleries, which are reached by the tiniest flight of stairs, it seems like climbing into a doll's house."^[10]

The building was demolished in 1917 to allow for the extension of Stuart street, part of the "broad highway" civic improvement project.^[11][12]

Events in Copley Hall

1890s Artists Festival, 1894[13] Art exhibition to benefit Boston Art Students' Association[14] American Arts and Crafts Exhibition[15] Daughters of the Revolution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts exhibit[16] Artists' Festival, 1898[17] John Singer Sargent exhibit[18]

1900s Artists Festival, 1900[19][20] Boston Orchestral Club concert[21] Museum of Fine Arts, School of Drawing and Painting, 25th annual exhibit[22] James Abbott McNeill Whistler exhibit[23][24] Monet exhibition[25] Artists' Festival, 1907[26] Bela Pratt exhibit[27] Yamanaka & Company Exhibition and auction of Japanese and Chinese fine art, November 6-8, 1902. [28]

1910s Spanish art exhibit[29] International Exhibition of Modern Art[30] Portrait exhibit[31] Bertha A. Grover exhibit[32] "Farewell" exhibition (1917)[33]

Images

• 
  Advertisement, Mme. Lineff Russian Choir, Copley Hall, 1895
• 
  Artists' Festival attendee in costume, Copley Hall, 1898
• 
  Artists' Festival attendee in costume, Copley Hall, 1898
• 
  Exhibit of J.M. Whistler, Copley Hall, 1904
• 
  Detail of map of Boston in 1911, showing Grundmann Studios near Copley Square
• 
  Catalog, Modern Art exhibit, 1913

Notes

1. Winslow's Rink hosted roller polo games and other entertainments.^[1]

References

1. "Winslow's Rink". The Boston Globe. March 5, 1886. p. 7.
2. Copley Society of Art. About CoSo Archived 2012-02-22 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2012-02-21
3. "Copley Hall, Proposed Temporary Walker Memorial." The Tech (MIT), Dec. 30, 1907
4. Henry Robertson Blaney (1896), Old Boston, Boston: Lee and Shepard, OCLC 497940, OL 6905750M
5. American Art News, Vol. 4, No. 9 (Dec. 9, 1905)
6. American Art News, Vol. 5, No. 12 (Jan. 5, 1907)
7. Vose Galleries. Mary Bradish Titcomb (1858-1927): Painter of the North Shore Archived 2012-02-17 at the Wayback Machine
8. Boston Evening Transcript - Jun 6, 1905
9. "College Club of Boston". Archived from the original on 2012-04-03. Retrieved 2012-02-21.
10. "No Longer a Dream". The Boston Globe. February 25, 1894. p. 28. Retrieved 2022-05-20.
11. "Urge a "Broad Highway"". The Boston Globe. March 8, 1917. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
12. American Art Annual, 1917
13. Boston Evening Transcript - Dec 13, 1894
14. "A great art show: Boston's loan exhibition of works valued at a million dollars." New York Times, March 6, 1897
15. Society of Arts and Crafts (Boston, Mass.) First exhibition of the arts and crafts, Copley Hall, Boston, April 5–16, MDCCCXCVII : representing the application of art to industry, and comprising manufactured articles and original designs for the same. Boston : Printed by T.P. Smith, 1897
16. Massachusetts Daughters of the American Revolution. (1897), Catalogue of a loan collection of ancient and historic articles, exhibited by Daughters of the Revolution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Copley Hall, April 19-20-21, 1897, Boston, n.p, OL 18117221M{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
17. Boston Letter. Artists' Festival: Festivities in Honor of the Return of the Crusaders. Brush and Pencil, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Jul., 1898)
18. American Art Annual, 1899
19. "Artists' Festival: Copley Hall became a part of Kenilworth last night when Queen Elizabeth was gorgeously entertained by the Earl of Leicester." Boston Evening Transcript - Apr 27, 1900
20. New York Times, April 10, 1900
21. Scharfenberg, David. "Young woman with a sax: American's first classical saxophonist to be honored today." Boston Globe, 12 Mar 2000: 10.
22. Boston Evening Transcript - May 28, 1901
23. Copley Society blog. James McNeill Whistler Exhibition, 1904. 2012
24. Library of Congress. Ten prints by James McNeill Whistler on display at Boston Memorial exhibition, Copley Hall, 1904
25. Boston Globe, March 28, 1905
26. The Meistersingers of Nuremberg; At the Artists' Festival in Copley Hall, Monday Evening, Jan 28, Will be Reproduced a German Festival of the Sixteenth Century, With All the Georgeous Costumes of that Period--The Interior of an Old German Hall Will Form a Splendid Background for All Sorts of Picturesque Dances and Playful Revel--The Copley Society Will Have the Assistance of the Harvard Glee Club, Pupils of the School of Design, the Tavern Club and Other Boston Organizations. Boston Daily Globe, Jan 27, 1907; p.40.
27. Bela Lyon Pratt.com Copley Society, Copley Hall, Boston, MA, 1908 Archived 2016-04-27 at the Wayback Machine
28. Boston Evening Transcript, Nov 1, 1902, p. 24.
29. The Spanish School: Loan Collection : the Copley Society of Boston, Copley Hall, March, 1912, The Copley Society, 1912, OCLC 66787843, OL 23491931M
30. International Exhibition of Modern Art, Copley Society of Boston, Copley Hall, Boston, Mass., 1913
31. Copley Society, Boston (1914), Portraits by living painters, [Boston]: Copley Society of Boston, OCLC 6670313, OL 24832389M
32. Boston Globe, Jan. 5, 1915
33. "Exhibition Given as Farewell to Copley Hall". The Boston Globe. May 18, 1917. Retrieved May 21, 2022.

42°20′58″N 71°04′29″W