Caswell Gallery: A Family Portrait

By Dan Murphy

Caswell Gallery is a family affair in the truest sense.

Caswell Gallery store manager Beverly Schulz and owner David Caswell.

David Caswell and his father bought the full-service frame and print store on Beacon Hill in 1992 before bringingDavid’s brother in to manage the store’s frame workshop in Quincy. Today, even David’s mother is in on the act as an illustrator for the store’s self-published prints.

And as a family business, Caswell Gallery prides itself on providing top-notch customer service.

“We have the ability to frame quickly and turn things around literally overnight, if need be,” Caswell said, adding that the frame shop allows the gallery to keep prices down on the retail level. “Without the workshop, we wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Caswell said the company also keeps prices reasonable by taking on large framing jobs for local businesses and institutions, including Hotel Commonwealth, Davio’s restaurant at Patriot Place and the Massachusetts General Hospital Yawkey Center for Outpatient Care, to help offset costs for individual patrons.

As for unique framing jobs, the store handles items diverse items, including antique etchings, vintage newspaper clippings and Asian scrolls, and offers both paper and canvas restoration. “There nothing we haven’t or can’t frame,” Caswell said.

Perhaps what most distinguishes Caswell Gallery from the competition, however, is the store’s exclusive line of prints, offering an array of Boston scenes, tropical images of the Caribbean and Florida and reproductions of vintage posters.

“We care about framing, but we’re one of the last print shops around, and we’ve developed our own line of regional and exclusive artwork,” Caswell said.

Today, the store’s bestsellers are photographs of the exterior and interior of the Fenway Park scoreboard. Like other Caswell images, they are available as 8-by-10 inch matted prints or in hand-signed, limited-edition quantities.

Meanwhile, Caswell Gallery uses its windows overlooking Charles Street to display its in-store inventory of frames prints, rotating the selection to reflect the current season or an upcoming holiday.

Store manager Beverly Schulz also invites customers to come inside and leaf through the catalog of the store’s extensive inventory, adding that the staff is also on hand to assist indecisive patrons select the most appropriate prints for their homes.

Looking to the future, Caswell would like to expand his framing business, but he has no plans to leave the neighborhood.

“We really love Beacon Hill. We enjoy the neighborhood and the people,” Caswell said. “You don’t find that in too many spots.”

Caswell Gallery is located at 31 Charles St. on Beacon Hill. For more information, visit caswellgalleries.com or call 617-946-9666.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.