Copley Square was originally called Art Square. Boston’s first Museum of Fine Arts was in Copley Square on the site where the Copley Plaza Hotel is today.

Art Square was renamed Copley Square in 1883 to honor the famous Boston painter John Singleton Copley. Copley lived in Boston until just before the Revolutionary War. He moved to London and never came back to Boston. There is a statue of Copley in the square a few feet back from the Boylston Street sidewalk.