In advance of Women’s History Month, Senate President Karen E. Spilka announced last week membership of the newly re-formulated Senate Art Committee, which will seek to diversify art and symbolism in the Senate.
The committee’s first task: Select a woman to be honored with a bust in the Senate Chamber.
The winning selection, which will be chosen from among nominations submitted by Massachusetts residents, will become the first woman to be honored with a statue in the chamber.
“Whether by accident or design, the contributions of women who have shaped our Commonwealth and nation have long been absent from State House art,” Spilka said in a statement. The “Senate is committing to ensuring that the symbols in the halls of power change to reflect those women and sending a clear message to every woman who walks our halls: you belong here.”
Members of the committee, chaired by Senator Julian Cyr, were sworn in at a public meeting last Wednesday.
“Now more than ever, the art that adorns the halls of the State House should reflect who we are as a Commonwealth and embody the values of Massachusetts,” Cyr, a Provincetown Democrat, said in a statement. “I am thrilled and honored to lead a renewed Senate Art Committee, one that will work to expand inclusivity and representation in the art that beautifies the State House.”
The committee, which was established in 1972 but later became inactive, includes Senate minority leader Bruce Tarr, and Democratic senators Lydia Edwards and Pavel Payano. It also includes Massachusetts art commissioner L’Merchie Frazier, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan of the Peabody Essex Museum, Susan Cross of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and Maggie Scott of the Museum of Fine Arts.
The winning selection will become only the third piece of art to honor a woman in the Senate Chamber, which has a portrait of former Senate president Therese Murray and a portrait of former first lady Abigail Adams, which was unveiled last year.
The Globe previously reported that the new bust will take up residence in the eighth and final alcove in the chamber.
It will be placed near a bust of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, which became the first statue in the Senate Chamber to honor a Black man when it was installed last year.
Malcolm Gay can be reached at malcolm.gay@globe.com. Follow him @malcolmgay.
