Mayor Walsh Announces Adam O'Day as Winner of Boston's Portrait of a City Competition

Today Mayor Martin J. Walsh and the Boston Art Commission announced that local artist Adam O’Day was chosen as the winner of the Portrait of a City competition, which challenged artists to submit work that captured the spirit of contemporary life in Boston.

“Arts and culture has always been one of my administration’s top priorities,” said Mayor Walsh. “The purpose of this competition is to highlight and showcase the work of local artists, and all of their creations were great. These artists are making the City a vibrant and lively place to live.” 

"We had incredible submissions and great engagement throughout the Portrait of City competition. In his winning piece, Transit, Adam O'Day's bright cityscape celebrates the vitality of contemporary life in Boston,” said Karin Goodfellow, Director of the Boston Art Commission. “We are truly excited that the Mayor will be representing the City of Boston to visiting dignitaries with an artwork by a local artist."

Adam O'Day graduated with a degree in Illustration and Graphic Design from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University in 2005. Since then, Adam has pursued his art full time, participating in over 100 art shows. In 2008, O’Day worked as an engineer and designer for the Navy. Impressionism and Expressionism are important influences in his artwork. He is currently working on writing and illustrating his own children’s book, Herman Worman Learns a Lesson, and is illustrating Quint and the Dreamers, another children’s text written by Anne Brensley.

From the many dozens of submissions received from Boston area artists, O’Day was selected as one of five semi-finalists by the Boston Art Commission and the Mayor’s Office in early May 2014. The public was then invited to vote on a winning work of art from the semi-finalists. Thirty printed and framed prints of Transit, O’Day’s vibrant painting depicting the cityscape as seen from Boston’s Back Bay station, will be purchased by the Mayor’s Office. They will be given as gifts to visiting diplomats and distinguished guests, serving as a testament to the great store of creative talent found in Boston.