Washington High School and the WPA

George Washington High School
600 32nd Avenue
Richmond District

George Washington High School opened on August 4, 1936, to serve as a secondary school for the people of San Francisco’s Richmond District. The school was built on a budget of $8,000,000 on a site overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

The architect was Timothy Pflueger, here he begins moving away from the highly decorative elements of his earlier Telephone Company Building and begins using symmetrical central elements, minimally embellished with fluted speed lines and simple plaques.

The lobby is decorated with WPA murals by Victor Arnautoff in the “buon fresco” styles. They depict scenes from the life and times of George Washington. In the second floor library, there is a WPA mural produced by Lucien Labaudt, entitled “Advancement of Learning through the Printing Press”, another by Ralph Stackpole titled “Contemporary Education” and “Modern and Ancient Science” by Gordon Langdon.

The stadium, auditorium, and gymnasium were added in 1940. The school was formally dedicated on Armistice Day of 1940.

The three figures over the door were sculpted by Victor Arnautoff.

Victor Arnautoff, painter, muralist, lithographer, sculptor and teacher, was born in Mariupol, Ukraine, in 1896. He served as a Cavalry officer in Czar Nicholas II’s army, receiving the Cross of the Order of St. George before escaping to Manchuria to avoid the Bolshevik Revolution. Arnautoff traveled to China and Mexico before emigrating to the U.S. and San Francisco in 1925.

He enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts where he studied sculpture with Ralph Stackpole and painting with Edgar Walters. Arnautoff returned to Mexico and studied mural painting with Diego Rivera.

By 1931 he had returned to San Francisco and shortly thereafter taught sculpture and fresco painting at the California School of Fine Arts. He also taught at Stanford University where he was Professor of Art from 1939 – 1960. His art affiliations included memberships in the San Francisco Art Association and the California Society of mural painters. Arnautoff was technical director and art chief of the Coit Tower murals project and is represented by a mural depicting city life.

He exhibited at the Golden Gate International Exposition, New York World’s Fair, Art Institute of Chicago, Palace of the Legion of Honor, Toledo Museum of Art, Foundation of Western Art, California Pacific Exposition, as well as annual shows of the San Francisco Art Association.

After the death of his wife in the 1960s, he returned to the USSR and died in Leningrad in 1979.

Shakespeare

George Washington

Thomas Edison

On the science building are two Arnautoff sculptures titled Power and Industry.

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