The Museum’s Upper Gallery will present a new exhibit of photographs by Hoboken artist, graphic designer and photographer McKevin Shaughnessy, whose solo show “The Hidden Faces of Hoboken” opens in the Museum’s Upper Gallery starting Sunday, March 14, with a reception from 2 – 5 pm. It will remain on view through April 25.

The exhibit may be visited in person, as long as visitors wear masks and observe social distance. The Museum’s occupancy is limited under the current state guidelines. An artist’s talk with Shaughnessy will air on YouTube/Facebook/Twitter on Friday, March 12, for those who can’t visit in person. It will be available for replay afterwards on YouTube.

Shaughnessy has lived in Hoboken since the mid-1980s, but only recently started noticing how many faces are embedded in the residential and commercial facades of Hoboken’s cityscape. What began as an idle way to entertain himself as he walked through Hoboken became an obsession and a pandemic project: Documenting over 540 (and counting) faces adorning Hoboken buildings. 

“The overall variety is staggering,” he says, “from family portraits to mythical griffins, bald eagles, lion heads, imaginary beasts, viking warriors, a sultan, numerous kings, a wolfman, the wolverine, a birdman, princesses and goddesses, cherubs and the like.”

Shaughnessy is working on a book project now, and the exhibit will display about 20 framed images he’s taken and printed, mostly in black and white, but some in color, of close-ups of the faces he’s “headhunted” in the past few months. 

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.