Rescuing Lc’s Art Team Of Volunteers Is Devoted To Cleaning And Restoring The Unique Collection Of Artwork At Lewis And Clark High School

For more than a decade, the Egyptian and his chiseled tablet, the philosopher and his manuscript, the printer and his press were lost.

Someone at Lewis and Clark High School had tacked brown burlap over the framed images and used them as bulletin boards.

But a few years ago, a student looking through old LC yearbooks noticed that old school photos showed 12 framed prints instead of bulletin boards.

A little detective work by librarian Shari Frankovic revealed that the prints, which hang in the school library, are color reproductions of the oil paintings suspended above the entrance to the Library of Congress.

The Egyptian, the philosopher and the pressman no longer toil under gunny sacks, but glass. The oak frames are polished and smooth.

Those dozen prints - a gift from the class of 1919 - represent but a small portion of Lewis and Clark’s art collection, which numbers in the hundreds.

Barbara Racker, curator of art at the Cheney Cowles Museum, examined the collection several months ago and concluded its pecuniary value is slight, but its instructional and aesthetic value to students and teachers is priceless.

“I’ve never heard of any high school anywhere doing this kind of thing,” Racker said. “It was nice to see art on the walls. How many other high schools value arts so much?”

More than 400 reproductions of paintings, plaster friezes and photographs hang in classrooms, hallways and above orange lockers.

Another 50 are stored in a basement niche, the “brick dungeon” beneath the school’s east stairwell. Others may have been lost or pilfered. Rumors abound.

“There are stories,” said Dean Lenz, head of the school’s art department. “One of our past principals supposedly visited his ex-custodian at his lake cabin and found some of the pieces decorating the walls. Needless to say, the principal wasn’t very happy.”

Linda Storey, owner of Backdoor Picture Frame, whose children attend Lewis and Clark, discovered the collection two years ago.

“As a framer it bothered me to see that these pieces were deteriorating from neglect,” Storey said. “They are a huge, huge mess. Filthy.”

Storey formed LC ART an acronym for Lewis and Clark Art Restoration Team - which boasts 60 members. Their goal is to clean the artworks and update the collection catalog, begun in 1924 by English teacher Nelle Wright.

This Saturday, LC ART is inviting the public to bring rags and scrapers to the school for a day of restoration.

“We’ll be trying to clean as many pieces as we can,” Storey said.

No one is quite sure when or why the collection began. One story credits Henry M. Hart, whose reign as principal at LC spanned a quarter-century, from 1907 to 1932, as the originator of the collection. He urged each graduating class to contribute reproductions to the growing collection.

But truth is, long before Theodore Roosevelt laid the school’s cornerstone wrong-side out in the spring of 1911, a score or more of ornately framed prints already had been assembled. The prints hung in the hallways of South Central High School.

Lewis and Clark replaced South Central, which burned in 1910.

Those prints still exist - legend has it they were saved from the blaze - enshrined today in gilded frames, adorned with smudged plaques reading “Gift of the Class of 1895,” “Class of 1898” or “Class of 1902.”

Along with the reproductions are a handful of originals, Storey said. There is a photograph by Asahael Curtis, etchings by several Northwest artists, and two 5-foot high oil paintings of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark painted by Alonzo Lewis, Meriwether’s nephew. Lewis, named Washington state sculptor laureate in 1939, also created the World War I memorial that stands on the grounds of the state Capitol.

In the paintings the two explorers peer gravely from their stations on either side of the school’s auditorium. Their figures rise from a blackened canvas; whether that was the artist’s intent or the rack of time and dust is unknown. The paintings have never been cleaned, Storey said.

Prints often go unnoticed for weeks or months at a time, until a teacher or student remembers to look up and catches a glimpse of his or her favorite picture.

“There’s a little Dutch engraving, a mezzotint, in Jon Patton’s offices, I really like,” said Lenz, head of the art department. “It’s real simple - a little village.

“I don’t know who the artist is, but I always like going in and seeing it.”

Senior Shannon Snow’s favorite prints are on the third floor. They depict cathedrals of Europe: Notre Dame, Chartres, Sacre Coeur.

Ryan Klinger’s favorite piece hangs outside the library.

“It’s a sun piece, a field,” said the sophomore with a pierced ear.

Although the graduating classes from the teens and ‘20s contributed most heavily to the collection, the class of 1988 sprung for a watercolor by Spokane artist Ken Spiering.

Assistant Principal Allan Bredy hopes to revive the tradition.

“It would be nice to acquire new pieces and keep restoring the old on an ongoing basis.”

“Some of them are magnificent, and some are butt-ugly,” said Bob Lobdell, a 29-year teaching veteran at LC and a former student.

“My mom was a 1927 graduate, and she bragged about the art then. She still loves it,” Lobdell said.

Sally Pfeifer, English department head, rescued a print from a third-floor storeroom. It was covered in dirt, and its wire hanger drooped dangerously. She plucked the two-paneled print from the wall, “washed it and washed it,” and hung it in her second-floor classroom. A tiny piece of white tape notes its title as “The Four Prophets.” Pfeifer has lived with the reproduction for five years. But once every few weeks she ponders its meaning anew.

“I work a lot with the philosophers,” she said, climbing up on a table to get a better view of the painting.

“One prophet seems to be holding a manuscript,” she said, peering at the four sages.

“Is that a book of philosophy? And the second man is clutching a scroll. What do you think?” Pfeifer asked a student, who had also climbed up onto the table for a better look.

“It’s so symbolic, a literature teacher’s dream,” said Pfeifer, beaming.

The French and Spanish teachers use the photographs of European cathedrals to illustrate architectural styles. The art department uses the reproductions to illustrate the evolution of paintings and pigments.

And some prints simply illustrate that there’s nothing new under the sun: a lesson for all.

Today’s fashion is often just a resurrection of yesterday’s.

Pfeifer’s favorite print is a portrait of Shakespeare. The bard sports a gold hoop in his left ear.

“Yup, it’s an earring,” Pfeifer said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 color)

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: VOLUNTEERS WILL SPRUCE UP LC ART SATURDAY Want to help clean the artworks? This Saturday is art restoration day at Lewis and Clark High School. The LC ART committee is sponsoring two work sessions. The first is from 9 a.m. to noon, and the second from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Volunteers are asked to bring rags and a scraper (putty knife). They should enter the school through the front door and assemble in the cafeteria. “There’s no training needed to do this,” Linda Storey said. “All we’re doing is taking the pictures apart, cleaning the frames and glass, and replacing the backing material.” Workers also are invited to bring a sack lunch (drinks will be provided) and participate in a guided tour of the school’s art collection. Leading the tour, which will run from noon to 1 p.m., will be Louis Livingston, a teacher and administrator at LC from 1925 to 1966. For information, contact Assistant Principal Allan Bredy at 353-4520, Linda Storey at 456-0325 or Kathy Chase at 838-1040.