GIFTED: Collecting the Art of California at Gardena High School, 1919-1956
William Wendt, Along the Arroyo Seco, 1912, Oil on canvas, 40x
50 in. Gift of Class of Summer 1924, Collection of Gardena
High School Student Body. Image courtesy of the Gardena
High School Art Collection, LLC.
June 20th - December 30th, 2023 | Fort & Atwell Galleries
GIFTED: Collecting the Art of California at Gardena High School: 1919-1956 was developed for the hundredth anniversary of the Gardena High School Art Collection (GHSAC) in 2019 and illustrates the unlikely history of a communal approach to collection-building and a microcosm of California's modern art history. BRAHM is pleased to announce that it will be hosting this exhibition in the summer of 2023. This will be the first occasion that the Gardena Collection has been exhibited on the East Coast and further cements the Museum's role as an important site for interpreting early American Modern painting, including Impressionism, figurative, landscape and genre painting. Accompanying the exhibit is a catalog of over 200 pages with color plates of the entire collection and interpretive analyses of its historical background and artistic significance.
A century ago, an exceptionally focussed art collection was born out of the recommendation of a school principal. He urged the senior class of Gardena High School to gift the school with an original landscape painting by artist Ralph Davison Miller. Thus began an unprecedented annual tradition:
For nearly 40 years, each senior class selected, purchased and donated works of art to the school, ultimately amassing an exceptional permanent collection of paintings. Each gift was carefully selected and purchased from an artist of note, often reflecting historical content from that year. The high level of sophistication demonstrated by the students’ choices was the result of the aesthetic discourse and collaboration nurtured by the school.
Today, the Gardena High School Art Collection is widely acknowledged as one of the nation’s outstanding collections of early 20th century California art, with works by some of the state’s most celebrated artists. Through more than 40 paintings, GIFTED traces the history of Southern California art in the early 20th century, when plein-air painting and the Arts and Crafts movement were flourishing, and chronicles the school’s ambitious efforts within the wider cultural scene of Los Angeles at that time.
GIFTED: Collecting the Art of California at Gardena High School, 1919-1956 is organized by the GHS Art Collection, Inc. in association with the Gardena High School Student Body and curated by Susan M. Anderson. BRAHM's presentation of this exhibition is generously supported by:
The Mariam & Robert Hayes Charitable Trust
The Catsman Foundation
Monica & Chip Perry
Lou Gottlieb & Gloria Lipson
Our State Magazine
Anonymous Donor
Monkee's of Blowing Rock
Behind the Exhibition: GIFTED
First shown at Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, California, in July 2020.