Longtime GCC art instructor Leonard DeGrassi dies

Leonard DeGrassi, a longtime Glendale resident and educator whose passion was art, passed away on Sept. 2. He was 88.

DeGrassi taught art history at Glendale Community College for decades, sharing his deep knowledge of architecture and the visual arts using nothing more than his memory, never relying on prepared notes.

After a full day’s work, art would continue as the main topic at home around the dinner table, said his daughter Maria Colosimo.

Born on March 2, 1928, DeGrassi was the only child of Romulus Grassi and Anna Sofia Grassi. After spending his early childhood in Minnesota, DeGrassi’s family moved to Hollywood in 1937.

As a teen, DeGrassi developed a talent for speaking, and won several oratorical competitions. In 1946, his second-place win in a national competition in Boston helped him earn a four-year scholarship to USC, according to his family.

By 1956, with a bachelor’s and master’s in art history, a teaching credential and a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in painting and drawing, DeGrassi left a teaching job in Redlands for one at Toll Junior High School in Glendale.

At Toll, he’d meet his wife, Dolores Marie Welgoss, a Latin and world history teacher

They married in 1961, and would later have one daughter, Maria, and one son, Paul.

In 1962, DeGrassi began teaching at Glendale Community College.

DeGrassi’s friend, Dennis Doyle, recalled how his knowledge spanned from Egyptian hieroglyphics to Greek columns, to Babylonian architecture.

Whenever he was asked about the meaning of art, DeGrassi would reply: “Art is there to show us who we are.”

When the college’s board of trustees closed its Sept. 13 meeting in DeGrassi’s honor, Supt./President David Viar noted that in 1987, when college officials first handed out a distinguished faculty award, the recognition went to DeGrassi.

After spending more than a decade in retirement, DeGrassi got a call in 2007 from Glendale Community College English Professor Michael Harnett, who asked DeGrassi to return to the campus to co-teach a humanities class that fused the cultural arts — DeGrassi’s expertise — with literature — Harnett’s focus.

DeGrassi agreed, and went on to teach the course through 2014.

While Harnett would prepare several sheets of notes for the class, DeGrassi would rely on his “encyclopedic knowledge of art,” Harnett said.

“He would just stand up and say what he knew so well. It was just a really wonderful time. It didn’t feel like a class. It just felt like two friends sharing what they knew with the people who were there. It was one of those things where you knew it was really special,” he said.

For Harnett, part of DeGrassi’s legacy is in the way he elevated the people around him.

“I think he made people be better,” Harnett said.

Speaking of DeGrassi’s students, he added: “They knew that he cared. They did their best for him.”

Through the end of his life, Degrassi remained active by meeting friends for lunch, attending the opera, or dining out, Colosimo said.

“He always stayed in connection with friends. So many students of his became friends,” she said.

She observed her father as a genuine listener.

“He always listened to everybody, and listened to them as though what they were saying truly mattered. He was that way since I was 2. He made me feel whatever I was talking about was important,” she said.

Funeral services were held Sept. 17 at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.

Degrassi’s wife, who went on to teach for more than 40 years at Toll, passed away in 2003.

He is survived by his children, Maria and Paul, and grandchildren, Joseph and Daniel Colosimo, and Leonardo and Eliana DeGrassi.

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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan