Tiny Gallery at Van Vleck

We’re thrilled to announce the popular Tiny Gallery Montclair is expanding with a second location in our Visitor Center!  Celebrate the beauty of the little things in life through the creativity of local and guest artists. Approximately each month, we will be introducing you to amazing individuals who find beauty in the tiniest details.

Make sure to add our gallery to your next visit!

Details about our shows and featured artists can be found below and on our social media.

February 2025

Poetic Realism: Light, Landscape, and the Everyday Sublime

Wendy Born’s collection of vibrant, textured works explores the intersection of the local and the universal—landscapes transformed through light, memory, and observation. Through the lens of poetic realism, each piece invites viewers to step into a world where color and composition evoke deep spatial presence and emotional resonance.

Working en plein air and from direct observation, Born captures fleeting moments: the sun’s piercing glow filtering through tangled branches, the shimmering play of water and reflection, and the quiet mystery of the grounds dissolving into the morning light.

For Born, painting is an act of self-determination—a way to reset in the face of an increasingly chaotic world. As you engage with her landscapes, a conversation and connection emerge, underscoring the power of small work to capture the sublime. Each painting is not just a record of place but a meditation on presence—an invitation to see the world anew.

To see more of Wendy’s artwork, vist www.wendyaborn.com

* Wendy Born’s show, highlighting the beauty of our Gardens, is currently scheduled to be on display starting February 18 through April 20.  Wendy is kindly donating 10% of each sale to Van Vleck House & Gardens.

November 2024

Land Back: A Tiny Gallery Takeover in Lenapehoking, curated by Jennifer Ley.

In celebration of Native American Heritage Month and Interwoven Power: Native Knowledge/Native Art at the Montclair Art Museum, Tiny Gallery presents “Land Back” featuring collections from seven contemporary Native artists installed in six Tiny Galleries across Montclair, Glen Ridge, and Bloomfield, New Jersey—all part of Lenapehoking, the ancestral homelands of the Lenape people.

Art allows us to examine the past, interpret the present, and envision the future, and Ley’s curation of Land Back brings the stories of Indigenous Americans, too often dismissed or overlooked, forward.

One of Tiny Gallery’s missions is to bring artistic voices that may not normally be heard into communities and present them in a new context. We are excited to share this unique exhibit in our Tiny Gallery space featuring a Mother-daughter duo, Karma and Fiona Henry.

To learn more about this project, visit their listing on the Tiny Gallery Montclair Artist page.

* The Land Back show is currently scheduled to be on display starting November 3rd. An opening night reception will take place Friday, November 1st, from 5-8 pm at 8 Stanford Place (Montclair).

September 2024

Montclair High School Art Educators Showcase! “Recess”

We are excited to celebrate the school year with our new exhibit in our Tiny Gallery space featuring the Montclair High School Art Educators Showcase!

“Recess” is a collaborative collection of pieces from the creative minds of Brienne Kvektus, Dan Gerdes, Angela Yanette, and Ann Cavallo that include styles such as watercolor, photography, sculpting and ceramics.

To learn more about this project, visit their listing on the Tiny Gallery Montclair Artist page.

* The Montclair High School Art Educators Showcase show is currently scheduled to be on display starting September 21 through November 2.

July 2024

Watchung Coop Preschool: “When the Kitties & Mermaids Swim All Around the Sharks: A Collection of Self-Portraits by 30 Artists Under Five”

We are so excited to share a new exhibit in our Tiny Gallery space featuring the Watchung Cooperative Preschool!   “When the Kitties & Mermaids Swim All Around the Sharks: A Collection of Self-Portraits by 30 Artists Under Five” is a mixed-media collection of pieces that combine photography, tempera paint, marker and paper.

A class discussion, where the children were asked to describe their imaginations, led to this whimsical show title. Stop by the Visitor Center today, and view the work of these local budding artists.

To learn more about this project, visit their listing on the Tiny Gallery Montclair Artist page.

* The Watchung Coop show will be on display starting July (ending date TBD)

April 2024

Joan Park: “Vacation Terra/Sol3 Earth, U.S.A” and “Ode to Spring” Aliens

The aliens have landed and Van Vleck! That’s right – our newest Tiny Gallery exhibit has arrived with Joan Park combined show of “Vacation Terra/Sol3 Earth, U.S.A” and “Ode to Spring” Aliens! They are just like us!

Make contact with Terra/Sol3, a collection of interstellar portraits by Bloomfield artist Joan Park. Each miniature watercolor and gouache piece is a snapshot of an alien family vacation—full of close encounters with Earth’s bucket list locales.

Plus, view Park’s “Ode to Spring,” a series of acrylic floral works with unexpected guests.

To see more of Joan’s work, visit her Instagram @joan_of_art1

* Joan’s show will be on display April through mid-June

January 2024

Yana Rodin: Parade of My Colorful Dreams

Yana Rodin is a former Montclairian now based in Seattle. Her work investigates a personal connection to the world: how she is both a part of it and an observer at the same time. She likes to shift the interpretation of her art and installations to the viewer for a multifaceted reflection and experience.

Yana likes to disrupt the ordinary by creating atmospheric art installations. With her “Parade of My Colorful Dreams”, she wants you to stop and see the intimate, vibrant, jewel-like paintings she created in the hope that you’ll catch a glimpse of the wonderful, charming, and charismatic characters in her dreams.

To see more of Yana’s work and shop her pieces, visit yanarodin.com.

* Yana’s show will be on display mid-January through February.

December 2023

Sophie Bugat: All in the Family

Meet the fantastical creatures of Jewish mythology through the eye Sophie Bugat. Sophie’s “All in the Family” collection offers an exquisite field guide to the mysterious and spectacular creatures of Jewish mythology. Discover Theli, a cosmic dragon thought to hold great power over the universe; Rahav, a fantastical sea creature that symbolizes divine conquest over evil; and the Keres, a multicorn thought to have great medicinal value—plus, delicate yet fierce depictions of old friends such as the Leviathan, the Behemoth, and the golem.

Through a prior collection, Sophie focused on famous fairy tales and the anti-semitic tropes they contain, to encourage discussion about how this particular form of bigotry has manifested itself for centuries. In All in the Family, Sophie repudiates traditional fairy tale antisemitism with depictions of mythical beings that appear in Jewish texts and folklore. The miniature pieces displayed in the Tiny Gallery celebrate the types of stories she wished she had read as a child. With them, Sophie hopes to educate the public and introduce them to the diverse and whimsical world of fantastical Jewish creatures.

* Sophie’s show will be on display December through late-January.

October 2023

Tracey Diamond: The Dreaming Trees

Fall in love with the autumn season as local artist Tracey Diamond shares her love love note to nature through “The Dreaming Trees”.

A fine artist at heart, Tracey see the world in colors, shapes and textures.  Her hope as an artist is to inspire others to look at the world around us with a new set of eyes and see our everyday surroundings in ways that we never imagined before… and get lost in the magic for a little while.

“The idea for this series was to play in the rainbow of colors that are about to unfold and welcome the season’s change. Maybe by sharing this little glimpse, you too will find more beauty in the leaf that falls in your lap, smile at the faces a tree’s texture makes, or simply pause in the moment as the landscape is changing into the next season.”

To see more of Tracey’s work and and shop her pieces, visit www.traceydiamonddesigns.com

* Tracey’s show will be on display October through late-November.