Class of Summer 1930
Carlo Wostry
b. Trieste, Austria-Hungary, 1865
d. Trieste, Italy, 1943
Beethoven, c. 1905
Oil on canvas
59 x 59 inches
Carlo Wostry’s Beethoven hung in the school library for many years. Two senior classes had coveted the painting but didn’t have sufficient funds; the class of 1930 was successful, perhaps, because Wostry was about to return to his native Trieste to complete a mural for St. Andrew Church in Pasadena. Art critic Arthur Millier devoted a paragraph to Beethoven in 1928, saying the composer, “was treading his way through a narrow street, his eyes cast down, as in contemplation. On his head was a gray nap-worn top hat. In his hand was a baggy umbrella. Protruding from a pocket of his top coat was the manuscript of what is now, perhaps, one of his noted compositions.” Behind him a woman leans out of a window without noticing the young composer, signaling his anonymity, as he was merely on the cusp of greatness.
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.
