Another hall of learning

Home of William and Blanche Hinman Garland, ca. 1901.

A COLLEAGUE RESEARCHING the original St. James Park in the West Adams historic district came across a mention of Garland Hall, a graceful mansion that originally occupied the lot on the northwest corner of West Adams Boulevard and South St. James Place. Garland Hall, we were surprised to learn, was briefly part of the original Downtown Campus of Mount St. Mary's.

The house at 815 W. Adams Blvd. was built by real estate developer William "Billy" Garland around 1901 and occupied by Garland (who died in 1948) and his widow until her death in 1958.

It was never part of the Doheny compound next door on Chester Place, and its Mount connection lasted only a few years. When Blanche Garland died in 1958 she deeded the property to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, which in turn sold it to the Catholic Archdiocese. Thus it was literally in the neighborhood and available when the Mount opened Downtown in the fall of 1962.

The garage of the building
was used as a sculpture studio.

An old Admissions brochure from 1963-1964 lists Garland Hall with the other buildings and their original names:

–Fontbonne Hall (known now as Building 10) - administrative offices, chapel, bookstore and classrooms
–Médaille Hall (Building 2) - library and study rooms
–Faculty-Student Center (Building 1) - informal lounges, meeting rooms, student body offices and counseling services
–Carondelet Center (Building 8-1/2) - Home Economics center
–Garland Hall (815 W. Adams Blvd.) - fine arts gallery and studios

The Catholic Archdiocese sold the building and it was demolished in 1972, to be replaced with nondescript apartments, something that was happening to stately homes all over the area.  But for a almost a decade it was home to art exhibits, music performances and aspiring young artists.

Discovering the existence of Garland Hall might also solve a little mystery that has intrigued us for years. During a cleaning up operation a few years ago, a number of paintings turned up in storage in the Doheny Mansion. Some were by prominent Los Angeles artists, including Mount benefactor José Drudis-Biada, complete with exhibit information and price tags. But they had been jammed rather haphazardly into two closets in the basement and left there for the next 45 years. Perhaps they once graced the gallery in Garland Hall.

A writeup for an exhibit in The View, October 15, 1964.

Lost and found: the art of Sister Ignatia

Mount convent (Rossiter Hall) in ruins after the 1961 Bel Air Fire.

SISTER IGNATIA CORDIS, CSJ, founded the Mount Art Department in the 1920s and passed away in 1986 at 99, renowned for her sometimes avant-garde work and for pushing the boundaries of what was considered suitable for a Catholic nun to paint.

In a film cabinet drawer in the College Archives, a yellowed envelope tells a familiar story of pictures borrowed and never returned. A typewritten label dated December, 1985 -- a few months before Sister Ignatia's death -- reads:

Lost -- set of slides of Sr. Ignatia's art show. The set was removed from the archives and never returned. I have asked the Art Department, the press, etc., but no positive results.

It's signed by Sister Margaret Lynch, then the College Archivist.

Every archivist knows that kind of frustration, but for Sister Margaret it had to be especially painful. When the Mount convent (Rossiter Hall) was destroyed in the Bel Air Fire in November, 1961, most of Sister Ignatia's early work also went up in flames. She continued to paint -- including documenting the damage to the College in a series of impressionistic watercolors like the one above -- and in October, 1979, the College staged a tribute exhibit of 50 of her paintings. Photographic copies were carefully made of the hanging work by Los Angeles photographer Gerson Bender and a set handed over to the Treasure Room (as the Mount's Archives & Special Collections were then known).

We are happy to report that after nearly 27 years, the slides have surfaced. Our intrepid volunteer Vivian Santibáñez unearthed them in a shoebox full of unmarked yellow slide boxes, and the Skirball Cultural Center archives kindly let us scan them there last week.

We'll post some of the images over on Facebook at MSMC Archives. Mostly buildings and interesting landscapes, some paintings have historic value, like the one below, a drawing of 21 Chester Place. This imposing white mansion next to the Doheny Campus was torn down and the land sold to L.A. Unified to build Lanterman High School.

That's life in the archives world -- you lose a few, you find a few. Some of Sister's originals hang here and there around both campuses, but the location of many from the 1979 show is unknown. At least now we know what we're looking for. We're sure Sisters Margaret and Ignatia are pleased.

21 Chester Place was the model for the Addams Family home in the
classic 1960s sitcom. No other images exist in the MSMC Archives. 

Advent

SISTER IGNATIA CORDIS, CSJ, served as chairman of the Art Department for more than three decades, from the founding of the Mount in 1925 until 1961. She passed away in 1986 at the age of 99.

A few of Sister Ignatia's works grace the college walls, including a watercolor hanging in Hannon Parlor that depicts the ruins of Rossiter Hall after the Bel Air Fire. Many of her works, sad to say, were lost in that same fire, which destroyed her rooms in Rossiter as well as the studios in the Marian Hall of Fine Arts.

The image above is "The Annunciation," an oil painting done in 1946 and probably Sister's best-known and most unusual work. Her surviving works are all landscapes, but this modernistic treatment of a classic theme is unique. The original is hanging in the Chalon office of President Ann McElaney-Johnson and makes a nice welcome to the Advent season.

Deadlines and doorstops

GOT THIS PHOTO during a visit to the Drudis-Biada Gallery around finals week when the senior exhibits were being set up. It nicely sums up the atmosphere of crazy stress that was going on inside. We all have days like that.