Hoover High Paintings to Be Auctioned to Raise Funds : Education: The three artworks were donated in the 1930s. Proceeds will be used to buy books, a library security system and educational computer programs.

Three paintings acquired by Hoover High School during the Great Depression will be auctioned this spring to help modernize the budget-strapped school library.

The Board of Education on Tuesday approved the sale of paintings by California artists William Wendt, William Ritschel and Nell Warner, valued at up to $85,000 by Sotheby’s of New York.

They were gifts from the Class of ’31 and unknown donors, but school officials say looking after them now makes little sense. In fact, no one could actually see Wendt’s “Bay Road,” stuck in a school vault since 1986 for fear that it might be pilfered. Ritschel’s “Moonbeams” and Warner’s “Floral Still Life” were hung in Hoover’s library, exposed to damage and dust.

For Hoover librarian Joyce Crane, proceeds from the paintings can help ease the pain of state budget cuts to student services and programs. District officials approved $6.3 million in cuts last year and Crane will have to scale back the library’s monthly periodical subscriptions from 50 to 20. The principal contributes to her collection by donating his newspaper each morning.

Hoover became a four-year school last fall, absorbing 800 ninth-graders from Glendale junior high schools. The library now faces a severe seating problem at noon, and Crane says many students must sit on the floor due to the lack of chairs.

“We’re shy of reference books,” she said. “There is essentially no technology in the library. Since the school district is having financial problems, this was an auspicious time to sell the paintings.”

Hoover officials plan to use the money to buy books, a library security system and educational computer programs. Part of the proceeds will be set aside for other school needs.

Adrienne Hunter, 77, who graduated from Hoover in 1933 and volunteers as secretary of the Glendale and Hoover Alumni Assn., was peeved by the district’s decision.

“It became a tradition for the graduating class to give paintings as gifts to the school,” she said wistfully. “I resent this very much. They have a PTA that’s very capable of raising money.”

*

Others in the Class of ’31 had difficulty recalling donating the Wendt painting. “I just can’t remember,” said Glendale resident Forest Fletcher, 74, who did not object to the sale.

School records show the Class of ’31 donated Wendt’s “Bay Road.” School officials and Hoover alumni could not trace records on the two other paintings.

Donald Duncan, principal at Hoover since 1974, believes they were donated to the school during the ‘30s.

He first thought of selling them in 1986, when a Los Angeles art dealer offered to pay less than $5,000 for all three. Today, Sotheby’s values “Bay Road” and “Moonbeams” at $20,000 to $40,000 each, and “Floral Still Life” at about $5,000. “I just sat on it,” Duncan said. “I was a bit leery of someone coming out of the blue.”

When the school librarian suggested selling the paintings last fall so the school could afford to add to its 19,000-book collection, Duncan met with district officials, who backed selling the artworks.

American art experts from three auction houses appraised the works before Duncan consigned with Sotheby’s. Founded in 1744, Sotheby’s will receive a 6% commission on the sales.

All three works were left uncovered at Hoover, but there is no evidence of damage, said Kathleen Martin, an expert in American painting at Sotheby’s. She said they will be cleaned for dust and prepared for two auctions in March at Sotheby’s main gallery on York Avenue in Manhattan.

All three artists lived in California during this century, Martin said. Wendt (1865-1946) grew up in Germany and emigrated to America in 1880. He was elected to the National Academy of the Arts in 1912, the same year he built a home in Laguna Beach.

Art critic Eugen Neuhaus wrote that “he sings of spring in its rich greens and more often of the joyful quality of summer in typical tawny browns.” “Bay Road,” painted in 1931, depicts a serene view of the Pacific coastline.

Ritschel (1864-1949) moved from Germany to New York in 1895. In 1918, the marine painter built a castle-like, ocean-view home in Carmel, where he lived the rest of his life. “Moonbeams,” painted in 1931, depicts crashing waves along the Monterey Peninsula.

Warner (1891-1970), an American-born artist, studied at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design. She painted “Floral Still Life” in the early 1930s. Her works are part of the permanent collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Municipal Art Gallery in Phoenix.