Former teacher is staging his first art exhibition — at age 90

Seymour Lemonick just accomplished something few 90-year-olds can dream of: staging his first art exhibition. For the retired Philadelphia teacher and football coach — a sculptor and self-taught woodworker whose Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, home is a makeshift museum — it’s a pinch-me moment.

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“This is beyond my wildest dreams,” Lemonick said of the exhibition that opened recently at MidMod Decor, a furniture and decor store in Wyncote, Pennsylvania.

Making art was something he felt drawn to do from a very young age, something that has long given him purpose and an outlet. Growing up in Olney and Oxford Circle, Lemonick painted at first, then, as a student at the University of Pennsylvania, fell in love with art history. After his Penn graduation, reality intruded. “I looked at the field and said, There are about four jobs available, and you're not going to get one,' so I took a different route,” Lemonick said. Less than a decade after he had earned a high school diploma from Olney High, Lemonick found himself back at the school as a history teacher.