Summer
1932
B&N students build the woodshop, which is still in continuous use
Spring
1958
Constance Holden starts the senior tiles tradition
Spring
1975
David Schuster '75 and Jonathan Stern '75 unveil their senior project: a triptych mosaic hung in Almy Study Hall
Fall
1984
The John Petropoulos Exhibition is created as an annual program
Spring
1993
The first annual MFA Day takes place
Visual Arts
The visual arts program has been a core part of the BB&N experience since long before the merger in 1974. The curricula across the three campuses is described: "At the Lower School, students explore key questions and engage in hands-on projects, utilizing creative materials to foster self-expression and innovative thinking. The Middle School curriculum focuses on creativity, skill development, and self-expression, providing a solid foundation for artistic exploration. The Upper School invites students to delve deeper into specific disciplines while also exposing them to new mediums and techniques. As students gain confidence in their abilities to see and make, they also gain an awareness of the impact of the arts on the world both within and beyond BB&N." Current courses include ceramics, woodworking, 3D design, drawing and painting, architecture, film and video, and photography.
Left to right: students in the woodshop; a student sculpts outside; a piece made by woodworking students for Doc Walters
Below: Paul Ruhlmann with a student, 2000
One of the oldest parts of the BB&N art curriculum is the woodworking program, which is roughly based on the Sloyd system of woodworking education, a crafting pedagogy originating from Sweden in the 1870s. In a 2004 interview for Woodwork magazine, former woodworking teacher Paul Ruhlmann described the program: "Here at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols School, the woodworking tradition goes back more than 100 years. Woodworking education has been considered part of the Fine Arts Department. Design and mechanical problem solving are emphasized in the wood courses. The courses are not about learning a trade but looking for ways to sense and explore the physical world with one's hands. A good word for this is the word 'haptic' from the Greek haptikos, which means to lay one's hands upon. It is the sense of the world one gets from one's hands."
Upper School students continue to learn woodworking through this artistic lens at the woodshop, which was built by students in 1932, and now includes a 3D design studio.
Above: Constance Holden in her home, 1955
Right: Ceramics teacher John Petropoulos
Another long-standing tradition at BB&N are the senior tiles. Every graduating student at the Upper School creates their own personalized tile, which are then displayed on the walls of the school for them to find at class reunions each year. The tradition was started by art teacher Constance Holden in 1958, and the tiles are now digitized and can be viewed online here. In a 2007 article in the journal Visual Studies, alumnus Richard Chalfen '60 noted that the tradition was "one rare example of a school consciously creating a visual culture." Today, students can either create traditional tiles or express themselves using different mediums such as photography, drawing, or digital art. These images are then transferred onto the tiles, maintaining the tradition while embracing modern approaches.
Ceramics students from B&N and early BB&N will remember teacher John Petropoulos, who taught ceramics from 1967-1982. In 1984, the Petropoulos Art Scholars program was created by his former students Peter Gergely '72 and Andre Balazs '75 in his honor. Originally a selective exhibition, the program has evolved over the years into a larger group show that "recogniz[es] visual art students who have made a serious commitment to the visual arts and have produced an outstanding body of work during their time at the Upper School."
Below: student work on display in the John B. Petropoulos Exhibition, April 2024.
Above: two event programs for "BB&N at the Museum of Fine Arts"; left, "Illustration of Black-billed Magpie" by Tom Gilmore, Grade 5, 1994; right, an event schedule and art by Olivia Fialkow '10 and Alexander Winter '06, 2002.
Below: two students take in the museum on MFA Day, 1997.
In 1993, BB&N and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA) partnered to create MFA Day, an innovative program in which BB&N student art was shown in an annual exhibition in the Boston museum. In a Bulletin article on the 20th anniversary of the program in 2013, Lower School art teacher Sharen Bowden summed up the symbiotic relationship between the two institutions: "The partnership has led to a lot of curriculum development within the museum, and has definitely helped to make the museum more family-friendly, which is an essential part of fostering the arts in our children... It gives our students, teachers, and families the opportunity to be in a world-class museum, and beyond just being there, to experience it on a personal level and to feel it intimately."
In celebration of BB&N's rich art curriculum, below are photos of BB&N art students and projects from the past 50 years and across all three campuses.
