GUILFORD — On Saturday, Oct. 15, at 7 p.m., the Broad Brook Grange will show all of its painted theater curtains, described by the program's organizers as “a collection of important folk art works.”
Guilford's Grange Hall has four curtains, but they are not ordinarily all viewable on any given occasion. As part of the ongoing 250th anniversary celebration of the town, all four will be lowered and then, over an interval, raised one by one to reveal each of the four scenes.
Some 160 Vermont town halls and Granges contain one or more of these painted theater curtains, an example of a folk art form that flourished for only a few decades.
These curtains were cleaned and restored by a team from the Vermont Painted Theater Curtain project, under the auspices of the now-defunct Vermont Museum and Gallery Alliance. The project continues, however, now called Curtains Without Borders, as it moves into other New England states.
M.J. Davis, who was one of the conservators who worked on Guilford's curtains, will present exhibit materials in a slide presentation on the Vermont project, showing notable curtains from various towns, and will speak on the process by which these curtains were located, catalogued, and, in many cases, restored.
All of Guilford's curtains, as well as at least some of a set of scenic panels, have been identified as the work of one of Vermont's principal artists in this genre, Charles W. Henry, who happens to have been born in Guilford.
Henry and his family comprised an itinerant arts group that traveled from town to town in the late 19th and early 20th century. They would take up residence in a town, and, while Charles Henry fulfilled commissions to paint scenic curtains for local buildings, his family would perform vaudeville shows, often on the stages where the curtains would be hung. Up to 45 scenic curtains in Vermont are thought to be Henry's work.
For decades, it was thought that Broad Brook Grange had three curtains, but when the conservation team examined the collection more closely, a fourth curtain, depicting a lake scene, was discovered.
Saturday's event is admission-free, with donations welcome to the 250th celebration. Greeting cards and post cards depicting the Guilford curtains will be on sale. The Broad Brook Grange is at 3940 Guilford Center Rd.