Brookline Arts Center

The Brookline Arts Center (BAC) was founded in 1964 as a cooperatively run center for art education. Originally located in the Brookline home of its founders, Barnett and Marilyn Berliner, the BAC has been in its Monmouth Street building (a former firehouse) since 1968. Since its first days, the BAC has aimed to break down barriers to accessing serious art education and to do so within an alternative organizational structure with deep roots in its community—aims which remain at the core of the center’s work today.

Now in its seventh decade, the BAC’s mission has broadened to include a deep commitment to the economic and labor conditions of working artists and a dedication to exhibiting challenging contemporary art in the context of a community organization.