L.A. School District Is Looking for Its ‘Buried’ Treasure

The Los Angeles Unified School District is looking for treasures in its basements, vaults and attics.

At the request of the school board, Supt. Leonard Britton has asked principals to prepare lists by May 20 of all gifts, including art objects and items of historical, cultural or monetary value, that their schools have received over the years.

Westside board member Alan Gershman, who proposed the survey, said he expects it to reveal a wealth of paintings, sculpture, rare books, photographs and other objects that have been accumulated by the district and its 618 schools.

“Who knows what’s out there?” Gershman said. “I’m very strongly inclined to believe there’s a very significant collection across the district.” The 133-year-old district is the second-largest in the nation.

Valuable Artworks

The district is already aware of some gold in its attic.

Gardena High School has a fine collection of more than 70 paintings, most by California artists, started in 1919. Venice High School has a small museum that houses a valuable collection of Greek and Roman objects, including ancient coins, jewelry, burial artifacts and Latin manuscripts.

Venice High also has a concrete statue of actress Myrna Loy, who was a student at the school in the 1920s.

Other artworks at local schools include murals by Depression-era artist Tyrone Comfort at San Pedro High School. The eight paintings, which were a Works Progress Administration project, show stern, muscular men at work in the South Bay refining oil, unloading fish and harvesting cabbage.

The district also has two huge murals by Kay Nielsen, a Danish-born painter best known for his illustrations for children’s books and his work on Walt Disney’s “Fantasia.”

Nielsen painted “The Canticle of the Sun” at Emerson Junior High School in West Los Angeles and “The First Spring,” which is in the library of Sutter Junior High School in Canoga Park.

According to Sutter librarian Lee Gibbons, the artist added a four-leaf clover to the mural in the early 1950s after a student asked Nielsen if there was one in his huge portrait of the newly created earth. Ever since, Gibbons said, newcomers to the school have traditionally studied the vast canvas until they find the lucky clover among the mural’s teeming flora and fauna.

Other items of interest and value in the schools include grand pianos and silver tea sets once commonly given to home economics departments so that young ladies could learn to pour.

Avoiding Losses

Gershman said he realized the need for a comprehensive survey of the district’s cultural and historical assets when he began to hear rumors a year or two ago of gifts that had been sold or carried off, misplaced or damaged. “Just the thought that there are things that have been lost in one way or another troubles me,” he said.

The survey is a necessary step toward an appropriate districtwide policy on the management of school gifts, including their use, protection and preservation, Gershman said. As one of the important cultural institutions of Los Angeles, the district should begin thinking about ways the public might be given access to the collection, he said. Gershman said his dream is the creation of a school district museum or gallery.

Jim Burk, an art specialist for the district, said it was common for graduating classes of the ‘20s and ‘30s to give their alma maters a parting oil painting or valuable book. Such items may have increased considerably in value since they were donated, he said.

Burk also noted that the survey might uncover autographs or other items of historical interest. Louis Pasteur Junior High School, a Fairfax district school that was closed last year, had a letter written by the great French scientist.

Gifts of value have been a source of both pride and anxiety for school staff. Traditionally, individual schools have been responsible for securing and preserving any gifts they receive. In order to protect objects of value, school personnel are often reluctant to talk about them. Such was the case with the principal of a school with a collection of etchings donated by the late actor Lionel Barrymore.

Gardena acquired its first painting in 1919 with $50 one of its senior classes had made from its school play (like many other schools, Gardena had two graduating classes each year). The tradition continued until 1956.

According to Gardena art teacher Phila McDaniel, who is the collection’s curator, the practice was stopped at the suggestion of school administrators, who urged the students to give more practical gifts, such as band uniforms.