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; after the Boston Art Students' Association leased the building it was renamed in honor of local art educator Emil Otto Grundmann. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose campus was adjacent, owned the property. Tenants included the Copley Society (formerly Boston Art Students' Association); artists Henry R. Blaney, Herman Dudley Murphy, Frank Richmond, Mary Bradish Titcomb; sculptor John A. Wilson, architect Josephine Wright Chapman; and the College Club.
Sculptor Max Bachmann's studio
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."
The building was demolished in 1917 to allow for the extension of Stuart street, part of the "broad highway" civic improvement project.
Events in Copley Hall
1890s
Artists Festival, 1894
Art exhibition to benefit Boston Art Students' Association
American Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Daughters of the Revolution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts exhibit
^"A great art show: Boston's loan exhibition of works valued at a million dollars." New York Times, March 6, 1897
^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
^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, OL18117221M{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Boston Letter. Artists' Festival: Festivities in Honor of the Return of the Crusaders. Brush and Pencil, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Jul., 1898)
^"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
^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.
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
