A California couple was left stunned when a simple renovation of their garden uncovered a mysterious stone bust with roots likely dating back to the 1930s.
Greg Gatwood, a landscaper by trade, was grading his backyard and leveling the soil at his San Francisco house when his shovel suddenly hit something hard in late May, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
At first, the 65-year-old thought he had stumbled upon an old fence post anchor, which he sought to remove with a pickaxe.
But once the slab got loose and Gatwood turned it over, he found himself staring at the face of a woman.
His wife, Judy Gittelsohn, 68, was sitting inside their home when she first noticed her husband’s discovery.
‘I look over and he has this head turned up,’ she recounted. ‘I said, “What the f**k? The last thing I need is a buried treasure.”‘
Once she saw the details in the carved face, though, she realized it was the work of a skilled artisan.
‘To get that smooth transition in carving a stone, any kind of stone, is really a masterful piece of work,’ Gittelsohn told KTVU.
A 150-pound limestone bust was found buried in the backyard of a San Francisco home
Greg Gatwood made the discovery while doing yardwork at his and his wife, Judy Gittelsohn’s, home in late May
At that point, Gittelsohn, a painter, reached out to about 50 scholars and art experts about the origins of the bust.
She soon learned that it was likely created by one of the students of Ralph Stackpole, a Works Progress Administration-era sculptor who taught at San Francisco Art Institute (then known as the California School of Fine Arts).
Stackpole, who focused on depicting indigenous people, had joined the faculty in 1918 and taught there up until 1941.
‘The thrilling part is the investigation and how many people are so excited about this,’ Gittelsohn told the Los Angeles Times.
‘We knew Ralph Stackpole’s canon of work but we didn’t know how many people he taught and how many people’s lives he touched,’ she continued. ‘I’m a painter, and it’s a fantastic big book opening.’
The couple now believe the nearly two-foot wide limestone bust came from the Golden Gate International Exposition, a World’s Fair held in 1939.
‘The likelihood is that it was made in the 1930s because of the style of execution,’ Gittelsohn suggested. ‘It’s pretty typical of the 1939 exhibition on Treasure Island.’
Anne Schnoebelen, a historian and vice president of the board of directors for the Treasure Island Museum in San Francisco, also said she would guess the bust is from an area of the World’s Fair called ‘The Court of Pacifica,’ which featured an 80-foot statue of the goddess Pacifica by Stackpole.
It also included a fountain of 20 other sculptures representing the Pacifica community.
The couple believes it was created by one of the students of Ralph Stackpole, a Works Progress Administration-era sculptor who taught at San Francisco Art Institute
Schnoebelen then suggested the sculpture was created by one of Stackpole’s students, like Adaline Kent, Helen Phillips or Sargent Claude Johnson.
Still, she said, that would not explain why it was buried underground.
‘It could have been somebody who didn’t like the way it turned out, or maybe Stackpole didn’t like it,’ she said. ‘But if they really didn’t like it, they could have taken a sledgehammer to it.’
If the couple now wants to get a more definitive answer about who carved the bust, Schnoebelen said they could get an expert to analyze the individual brush strokes.
‘There’s a sophisticated method to examine the strokes to examine how it was made and what kind of tools were used,’ she explained. ‘I just think that when sculptors are known for doing that kind of work, experts can determine who did what.’
While the exact origin of the bust remains unclear, Schnoebelen said she enjoys all of the attention it has brought to that period of art.
‘I love that it’s bringing attention to something that I care about very deeply,’ she said. ‘I appreciate that Judy and Greg have added to that mix of possibility.’
‘It looks like it could’ve been one of the faces made for the Court of Pacifica, but we don’t know,’ Schnoebelen noted.
Meanwhile, Gatwood said he will proudly display the nearly 150-pound sculpture ‘in a special way in our yard.’
‘I’ve always thought every yard deserves a nice piece of garden art,’ he said, noting it is not leaving their yard ‘unless we find out it is a priceless sculpture that needs to be in a museum.’
