The Art of Helen Meyrowitz – Through September 2025

Now Through September 2025

North Hill Resident and renowned artist Helen Meyrowitz founded the art gallery in North Hill. Some of her work is on exhibit in the Gallery at North Hill through September of 2025. In addition to founding the gallery, Ms. Meyrowitz has created a permanent collection of art for the campus, which continues to grow with every curated exhibit. You can view the permanent art collection catalog on our website www.northhill.org 

Read Boston Globe art critic Kate McCabe’s essay about Helen Meyrowitz 

Mrs. Meyrowitz has an extensive exhibition record. A partial listing includes The Brooklyn Museum, Hechscher Museum, Huntington, NY, New York State Museum, Albany, NY, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgewood, CT, Portland Museum, Portland, ME, and the Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA. Her work is in the collection of The St. Botolph Club, Boston, MA, Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY, Hillwood Art Museum, Greenvale, NY, Delaware Museum, Wilmington, DE, Adelphi University Museum, Garden City, NY, Higgins Armory Museum, Worcester, MA, and private collections. Helen Meyrowitz’s move to North Hill from Long Island in 2002 threw a wrench into her art career. She had studied with Robert Rauschenberg and exhibited with the de Koonings. She had marched with the Guerrilla Girls and chaired the National Drawing Association. Her friends asked, “You’re moving to the boondocks. What are you going to do?” Now we know: Helen has changed the face of continuing care with an infusion of art. She came to North Hill with her husband Sidney, because their daughter was nearby, and Sidney soon began developing Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Helen coped by making mythic drawings dancing with spontaneous gesture and emotional fluidity. Sidney died in 2009. By 2012 Helen was ready for her next chapter. She approached Kevin Burke, North Hill’s then CEO, and proposed opening an art gallery. She called on Katherine French, executive director of the Danforth Art Museum, for advice. The first show, organized by the Danforth n 2013, spotlighted painter Ilana Manolson. Helen curated the second, “Boston Painters, Boston Painted,” which included pieces by David Wells Roth, Richard Raiselis, George Nick, and Sean Flood. “It was a huge success,”Helen said over lunch at North Hill’s Bistro. “Kevin Burke was thrilled. He said, ‘Okay, we’ll back this.’” She was off and running. Helen set out to find purpose in her own life, but she ended up bringing vitality to North Hill that only art can, enriching the environment with vision, sensuality, mythos, and intellectual rigor. Residents and staff turn out for exhibition openings.

It’s a deeply engaged, opinionated community and Helen has gracefully – even playfully – navigated disagreements about her curatorial choices. For instance, an early exhibition featured a nude bronze by Jane Blair. One morning, a bathrobe appeared on the sculpture. “The next day I came in and there was a scarf draped around it,” Helen said. “One day there was a baseball hat on it. It was great fun! Everybody was thinking what they could do with it.” Helen went out into the art community, getting to know local artists and discovering a wealth of good art. She instituted regular artist talks, which draw crowds. She brought Danforth art to North Hill when the museum was changing campuses. In appreciation of her work, North Hill created a scholarship in Helen’s name for art students at Needham High School – and has exhibited their artwork. Her vision has always been to create a living museum. To that end, she began the collection we’re celebrating in this catalog, inviting artists to donate a piece after each show ended. Today, most of the 40 works in that collection are installed, salon style, on North Hill’s third and fifth floors: 

Paintings, photographs, prints, textiles, and sculpture by a roster of terrific artists – including Nancy Schön, Destiny Palmer, Sidney Hurwitz, and more. Fine art prints and posters hang in other hallways at North Hill like dim memories of art once savored elsewhere. Helen’s collection bursts off the walls with a joyful jolt: Real art, good art, living art. Not bad for the boonies.