GIFTED: Collecting the Art of California at Garden

Few people know that the Gardena High School student body has what is a preeminent art collection of Western landscapes, the product of an innovative collaboration between the students and community that lasted for almost 40 years. Each year from 1919 to 1956, Gardena High School seniors, following the recommendations of student art committees, purchased one or two works of art as class gifts. Artists gave the students price breaks, and the entire Gardena community joined in year-long fundraising drives to make the purchases possible. The goals of this hundredth-anniversary publication and exhibition are to document the remarkable history of community collaboration that formed the Gardena High School Art Collection and to preserve the collection for future generations.