Historic painting rehung

La Crescenta Elementary School’s first teacher, Helen Haskell, has been dead for more than 60 years. But a portrait her famous husband, S. Seymour Thomas, painted of her has been given new life.

The 103-year-old portrait, which bumped around in the school since Thomas donated it in 1953, was rehung in a place of honor Friday, restored to its former grandeur.

The community teamed up to raise $1,600 to have the portrait restored to its youthful beauty after school officials realized that the oil painting was deteriorating, said Mike Lawler, president of the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley.

“The canvass was beginning to rot away,” Lawler said. “And you could see where someone tried to wash it with Ajax or something.”

The painting is important to the school and the community for many reasons, he said.

Haskell, a San Francisco socialite and niece of La Crescenta founder Benjamin Briggs, got bored with the high life in Northern California in the 1880s and moved in with her uncle.

When Briggs founded the Crescenta Valley’s first schoolhouse in 1887, he asked Haskell to be the school teacher, and she agreed.

Soon after, she moved to Paris where she met and married Thomas, a famous portrait artist. The two fell in love and were married for 50 years, until her death.

Aristocrats and royalty paid hefty commissions to Thomas to paint their portraits, Lawler said. He was so respected by fellow Parisian artists that his works were exhibited in the exclusive Salon Academy. Many of his works are priceless and he donated them to area schools and hospitals, Lawler said.

“He is a real hero of mine,” Lawler said. “His three loves were his art, his faith and his family.”

During their marriage Thomas made many oil paintings of his wife, including the one donated to the school, Lawler said.

Over the years the painting was stashed in different places, including a dark corner of the nurse’s room and in the school’s library.

When former Principal Beverly Johnson realized what bad shape the historic painting was in, she called on the community to help restore it, and reserved a space for it on the south wall, Principal Kim Bishop said.

“Our art program is very important to us,” Bishop said. “It’s important for the children to appreciate art and we want them to understand that art is valuable and should be preserved.”

So the historical society and the La Crescenta Elementary School Foundation organized the Art in the Park Carnival in March to raise the money for the restoration project.

“The art restoration gave them a chance for students to see the broader picture,” Bishop said. “They had the opportunity to use skills from different subjects like history, art, finance.”

Katie Richardson, 9, whose mother, Gail Richardson, is president of the foundation, said she learned a lot when she volunteered to run the cupcake booth at the carnival.

“This is a picture of the first teacher who ever taught here,” Katie said. “She’s an important part of history and of our school.”

Bishop is planning an official re-hanging ceremony on back-to-school night Sept. 14, when the society will mount a plaque on the wall next to the painting.