'Greetings From Wembley' Art Exhibit

If you are a fan of Downton Abbey, you will remember that Lady Crawley and her husband, Matthew, were fortunate to have a child (baby George) by the end of season 3 of Downton Abbey.

Now imagine this: fast forward to 1937. Baby George has now grown to a child of 13 and attends The East Lane Senior School in Wembley, England. There, his teachers have put together an art exhibit created by all the students (ages 10-14). They send the collection to a school in America as part of a pre-war cultural exchange, the Mary C. Williams School in Delaware.

The work is exhibited to the community there, where it receives rave reviews, and even makes the local newspaper! Afterward, it is packed away in a wooden crate for storage and is forgotten.

Nearly eight decades later the box resurfaces and a local gallery owner in Montclair finds it and brings it to The Art Garage, which takes this opportunity to present a once in a lifetime exhibit that is nothing short of a cultural time machine: a true time capsule moment.

It all sounds like pure fiction, surely too good to be real. However, aside from baby George, this is a true story!

For the first (and last) time since 1937 the art work done by those students from the East Lane Senior School will be exhibited as it was in 1937. The show, Greetings From Wembley, is the original school art work collection and will be exhibited at The Art Garage, at 211 Glenridge Ave., until April 6. 

Don’t miss this opportunity to catch this unique slice of history from both an educators and the art historian point of view. Podcasts and discussions about the exhibit will be available.

A reception will be held Friday, March 15, between 6 and 9 p.m. at the studio. 

For more information, contact Suzanne OConnor at Picasso@ArtGarageNJ.com or (973)-744-6484.