MAG installation recalls Colonial Boston

John Singleton Copley, Nathaniel Hurd. Memorial Art Gallery, Marion Stratton Gould Fund.

That painting--along with a finished version--is part of the new interactive installation at MAG's Dorothy McBride Gill Education Center: About Face: Copley's Portrait of a Colonial Silversmith. In addition to Copley's artwork, the installation includes a selection of silver objects bearing Hurd's mark, plus bookplates and engravings he designed and printed. Other items from Colonial times also are on display, such as eating utensils, firefighting tools, engravers' implements, books, maps, and newspapers.

About Face gives families the opportunity to learn more about these two artists who lived through the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and other events that changed history. To give visitors a taste of that era, an artist's studio with a dress-up corner, a silversmith's forge, and interactive displays about life in Colonial Boston are set up. Some of the activities for ages 8 and older include designing a silversmith's "mark" used by Colonial artisans to sign their work and adding to an unfinished 18th-century masterpiece using a computer.

The long-term installation opens on Tuesday, November 23, and is scheduled to remain at the Gill Center through 2001.

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