Draper Elementary opens a century of art to the public on Nov. 18

Canyons School District and the Draper Visual Arts Foundation will hold the first "Art @ Draper Elementary Public Tour" on Wednesday, Nov. 18, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the school, 1080 E. 12660 South, the Draper Herald reported 2. The tour is free, and foundation board members will answer questions about the works 2.

Until now, visitors had to schedule an appointment with the front office to see the collection, which lines the hallways and the school library: original paintings, prints and sculptures, more than 100 works in all, with a Norman Rockwell painting of Ichabod Crane as the centerpiece 2.

The district's collection website catalogues the works area by area, through the east hallway, the media center and the north and south loops 1. The Draper Herald reported works by the Utah artists Florence Ware, Cornelius Salisbury and Lee Greene Richards, along with a mountain scene by Bob Ross 2.

The collection is not a contemporary purchase. It began as a school project. The Draper Visual Arts Foundation, which was organised in 1992 to act as caretaker of the collection, records that Reid Beck, principal in the 1920s, asked teachers and students to help bring art into what was then a farm community school, and that children donated pennies, nickels and dimes to buy the first painting 4.

The foundation dates that first purchase to 1926 4. The Draper Herald reported that the district's collection page lists the first purchase in 1928, and reported that the two accounts differ 2. The district's own catalogue states that Beck proposed the creation of an art collection for the school in 1927 1. Both accounts credit Beck, who was principal of Draper School from 1917 until his death in 1943, with starting the effort, and both describe a practice that continued for years, including through the Great Depression 24.

The foundation records that the Rockwell, a painting of Ichabod Crane, was added in 1953, and that Rockwell lowered his asking price from $1,200 to $800 when he learned that children were trying to buy it 4. Junior high students still had to organise extra fundraising to cover the reduced price 24.

A 2016 Deseret News column on the painting gives a different purchase year and a fuller account of the sale 3. The columnist, Lee Benson, reported that the painting was on display at the Springville museum in the spring of 1951 with a $1,200 price tag, that the ninth-grade class pooled $800 raised at car washes and bake sales, and that Rockwell lowered his price so the students could have it 3.

The collection survived a period when it was not on display at all. The foundation records that by 1992 the old school had closed, a new elementary had been built and the junior high students had been sent to Mount Jordan Junior High in Sandy, and that the art was boxed up with no special care given to it for years 4. Hulda Crossgrove, who had been a first-year teacher at Draper Park School in 1926, raised the concern, and two former students and teachers, Mary Sjoblom and Jean Hendricksen, took it to the Jordan School District superintendent 4. The district told them it had no funds for the work but welcomed the idea that they organise as caretakers, and the group became a foundation in 1993 4.

The Draper Herald reported that Hendricksen compiled binders of research on the art that the district team used while preparing the tour 2. Foundation board member Jenny Haase told the Draper Journal that the collection carries a rich history that many people are unaware of 2. Former Draper mayor Darrell Smith, also a foundation board member, called it Draper's best-kept secret, and the Herald reported that student security at the elementary school made public access difficult for years 2.

Susan Edwards, public engagement coordinator for Canyons School District, told the Draper Journal that her team spent months researching each work and creating informational placards, and that the team also built a detailed web page about the collection and a virtual audio tour 2.

"We wanted to get it open to the community," Edwards told the Draper Journal 2. "This is the first step to let people in to see it" 2.

The paper has no current appraisal and the district has not published one. In 2016 the Deseret News reported the owner's estimate of the Rockwell at nearly $2 million, then reported that Vern Swanson, who had just retired after 32 years as director of the Springville Museum of Art, put it at $5 million to $6 million 3.

Swanson also argued the painting did not belong in a school. "Oh, if I was the school I'd sell it in a minute," he told the Deseret News, adding that a school is not an art museum and that in schools "the curator is often the janitor" 3. The district has announced no plan to sell any part of the collection 2. The foundation's account of its work describes fundraising for restoration of the collection after it was boxed up 4.

Donations to the Draper Elementary Art Collection and to the Draper Visual Arts Foundation will be accepted at the tour 2. The district has announced no additional public tour dates 2.