The Boston Public Library, or BPL, is marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States with a new major exhibition titled “Revolution! 250 Years of Art & Activism in Boston.” The show examines American values and ideals throughout the country’s history and highlights local voices driving social change in and around Boston.
The exhibition opened Oct. 23 at the BPL central branch in Copley Square, featuring over 100 art pieces and archival materials dating from 1776 to 2025. The pieces examine the ideals set forth at the United States’ founding through various historical lenses, from the Indigenous peoples of the Americas to the leaders of the civil rights movement and the immigrant communities of today.
“When the Boston Public Library first opened its doors, the very idea of a free public library was revolutionary,” said BPL President David Leonard in a September press release announcing the exhibit. “With ‘Revolution!’, we carry that spirit forward, inviting visitors to explore how the ideals of liberty and justice have evolved over the past 250 years.”
“Revolution!” is the final part of BPL’s three-year program of Revolutionary War-themed shows and exhibitions called “Road to Revolution.” Visitors are invited to experience Boston with archival items and modern pieces.
Historical works like William Champney’s “The Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770” and Henry Sadd’s engraving of John Trumbull’s “The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776” are put in conversation with modern pieces such as John Wilson’s “Oracle” and photographs from the Boston Herald Traveler Photo Morgue from the civil rights movement.
“I really like [the exhibit], but I was surprised,” said Camila Vargas, a high school student visiting Boston from Florida. “There’s a lot of the [American] Revolution [content] in the beginning, and then [the exhibit] slowly comes to different situations of the different revolutions.”
“Revolution!” begins and ends with two interpretations of George Washington’s fortification of Dorchester Heights. Visitors are first greeted by Emanuel Leutze’s 1852 painting “Washington at Dorchester Heights,” and at the end of the exhibit, they are met with Newton-born textile artist Michael Thorpe’s response to the painting: “George Washington quilt”. Thorpe’s quilt is an evolving, dynamic replica, made up of twenty puzzle-piece-like squares he will periodically rearrange to continue to distort the image of Leutz’s painting.
“History is a static thing, but the interpretation of history is constantly changing,” Thorpe said in an interview with The Huntington News. “Everybody can take their own perspectives. I think that’s the beauty of it; it’s not a science, it’s an art where everybody can look at it, and it’s ever-changing, you know? I mean, that’s the kind of nature of this piece, specifically because it legitimately changes.”
The first rearrangement of the quilt will take place March 4, the anniversary of the Battle at Dorchester, when visitors can observe the artwork change in real time.
Several other local artists are featured, including Boston University Chair of Photography Toni Pepe and Boston Printmakers secretary Robert Tomolillo.
Many of the art pieces also feature moments in Massachusetts history: Engravings of the Boston Massacre, photographs of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march to the Boston Common and photographs of the first National Day of Mourning for Indigenous peoples in Plymouth all highlight how the state has been a central location for national reform and social change.
“I’ve lived in Boston my whole life,” said Boston resident and exhibit attendee Andrew Sharpe. “But every time I come to something like this, I feel like I’m always learning more about the city and the history.”
At some points in the exhibit, pieces are juxtaposed to convey how the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence did not truly guarantee peace or emancipation for all. A 19th-century engraving by an unknown creator, “Rejoicings at Faneuil Hall, Boston, at the close of the revolution,” hangs beside a visually similar lithograph created by an unknown artist in 1850, “Rocking Slaves in Faneuil Hall,” intended to depict the continuation of oppression and ongoing battle for civil rights post-revolution.
“Being in the Boston Public Library, the oldest library in the country … in a place that’s almost a non-traditional art space, it’s open to the public, there’s no barriers,” Thorpe said. “In a lot of ways, art is a very exclusive, very elitist club. It’s so meaningful to be in a place where all walks of life can be there and experience it and walk away with something or walk away with nothing. That’s the beauty of it.”
The exhibition, located in the McKim Exhibition Hall, runs until April 21. It is open to the public seven days a week at varying times: Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.; and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.
