by Susan Alderson Hoffmann

What excites a young mind? For a group of sixth-graders, it was the opportunity to visit the Huntington’s Scott Gallery of American Art and weigh in on the meaning of Boxing Match (1910) by George Benjamin Luks (1867–1933). Like the crowd at ringside, the students drew near to wonder about the boxers, the audience, and the reasons Luks chose to depict this scene.

Their interest in the painting began at school, in the classrooms of Jim Mayhew and Doris Riley. Both are teachers at Rockdale Elementary, a school in Eagle Rock that is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District. For the past two years, the entire Rockdale faculty has worked with members of the Huntington’s education staff to develop an in-depth art program inspired by works in the Huntington art collections. Each grade studies a single work of art over the course of the year.

Sixth-graders Jennifer Estrado, Delaney Harris, and Courtney Canlas discuss Luk's Boxing Match in the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art with their teacher, Jim Mayhew. Photo by Lisa Blackburn

Mayhew and Riley chose Luks’ Boxing Match for their sixth-graders. This gritty view of urban life inspired classroom discussions on the history of New York around 1910. Students discovered that former slaves and their families—as well as recent immigrants—were moving to American cities at this time; some of the newcomers entered the world of sports to earn a living. Private clubs, perhaps like the one shown in the painting, hosted fights for wealthy fans (in ringside seats) and members of the lower classes, whose faces disappear into the background.

The teachers addressed the sensitive issue of racism that accompanied many of the famous boxing and wrestling matches of this time. In 1910, the African American boxer Jack Johnson defeated his white opponent, Jim Jeffries. That victory set off race riots across the United States. Luks didn’t identify the fighters in his painting, nor the location of the match. Like George Bellows, another realist painter who depicted brutal fights and wrestling matches, Luks generalized his scenes. But common to the work of both was the suggestion that the African American would overwhelm his white opponent, fueling racist notions of ethnic superiority.

Armed with this background information, students turned their attention to the aesthetic qualities of the paintings. Which art elements did Luks use? And why did he use them? In the classroom, Mayhew and Riley reviewed the elements of art as detailed in the state’s guidelines for primary education. Line, shape, texture, color, and space became the language of the Rockdale students, important tools they would use during their visit to The Huntington.

The in-depth classroom study helped the students achieve an important goal of the program: to develop the skills needed to view a work of art in a museum setting and make informed opinions on its meaning. When the students approached the Luks painting at The Huntington, they led the discussion, with teachers and docents joining in. “They were contemplative,” Mayhew noted, “very thoughtful and focused.” Riley agreed. “They felt they had something to say.”

Back at school, in written essays, students interpreted the work. Some focused on the elements of art and how they contributed to the subject. Recalling the surface of the painting as “very thick and rich,” one student concluded that the “texture makes it very real.”

The dramatic encounter of the boxers, one nearly falling from a punch, caught the attention of many students, who described the scene in terms of what they called “unbalance”: “George unbalances the picture…[making] it look like something is really happening.”

In their own way, these young students recognized the realism of the scene and appreciated how the artist directed the viewer’s attention. Luks depicted a shallow space, one student hypothesized, “because he wanted people to focus on the boxers.”

Other students brought the subject of the match, with its racial overtones, into the context of their lives today. “The racism problem is still in the air that we breathe” was the conclusion drawn by one student. Another formed a different view, writing, “Luks made this painting…to show the racism and segregation against blacks back then…. This is very different than how it is now.” The audience depicted in the painting drew as much attention as the fight. “We can see the faces of the upper-class people but not the lower-class people. Why is it that people think white people are so superior?”

Such reflection on art brought these students into the community of museum visitors—children, adults, and scholars—who study art and interpret its meaning. The success of the program depended upon the determination of teachers, school administrators, and Huntington educators to bridge the divide between the classroom and the art museum, a place foreign to many students from Rockdale.

Partnerships like the one forged between The Huntington and Rockdale Elementary School belong to a program developed by the LAUSD in 1998. That year, the district began a 10-year plan to reintegrate arts education into the curriculum—at every grade and for every student attending Los Angeles schools. District leaders recognized the need to include local arts providers in the program, appreciating how the combined resources of the classroom and arts institutions would enhance the programs offered to their students. Rockdale Elementary was one of the first schools in LAUSD to receive funds for arts education. Today, the goal of arts for all has been achieved at Rockdale, with all students receiving instruction in art, dance, music, and theater. The Huntington is now using the Rockdale model to build a partnership with schools in the Pasadena Unified School District.

Bringing schoolchildren into a direct experience with art, via school tours, has been a tradition at The Huntington since 1937, as has the preparation of “pre-visit” materials for teachers. The new model, with collaboration at its core, combines the best of the classroom experience, where the foundation for learning is laid, and the magic of viewing art in person. The benefits of this model can be seen—and heard—in the responses of students. They have entered into the world of history, learned the language of art, and developed the confidence to make informed opinions. More than looking, they are now “weighing in” on what art means to them.

Susan Alderson Hoffmann is the Art Educator at The Huntington.