San Francisco couple was doing yard work in their Russian Hill home. Then their axe hits a pair of eyes and lips: ‘like something you see in a movie’

Greg Gatwood was apparently doing yard work at the couple’s Russian Hill home in San Francisco in May when his shovel hit something hard under the dirt. Gatwood, a 65-year-old landscape contractor, told Fox News Digital that he first thought he had struck an old fence post footing or a piece of concrete. He added that his partner, Judy Gittelsohn, was standing nearby.

Gatwood said he tried to pry the object loose with a shovel and then grabbed a pickaxe. He then spotted what appeared to be lips and a nose looking back at him. “I thought, ‘Well, maybe I should just break it into smaller pieces,’” Gatwood said. “Then I realized it was a statue. It was like something you see in a movie, almost cinematic, you know, a big beautiful statue like this.”

The object turned out to be a limestone bust of a woman. Reporting described it as weighing about 150 pounds and measuring about 22 inches wide, 18 inches high, and 10 inches deep, with a woman’s head and neck rising from a rectangular base. Gittelsohn, a professional painter, said she was stunned when Gatwood showed her the piece. “I was just shocked,” she said. “What an enormous find. I was surprised. I was just gobsmacked.”

Research points to Depression-era artists near the former art institute

Gittelsohn said she researched the sculpture and believes it may date to the 1930s and could be tied to artists who worked under the Works Progress Administration. The couple’s home reportedly sits near the former San Francisco Art Institute, where sculptor Ralph Stackpole taught for many years. Gittelsohn said she thinks the piece may have a connection to Stackpole or one of his students.

She pointed to the material as one clue. The bust was carved from limestone rather than costlier stone such as marble or granite. She also told NBC Bay Area that Stackpole’s students created a similar look, with a flattened nose and broad face. “His disciples, his students, created this similar look of the flattened nose and broad face,” she said.

Gittelsohn told the San Francisco Chronicle she has spoken to close to 50 people and that no one has identified the work. “It was done by someone with a sophisticated skill level. It was not created by a hobbyist,” she said. Ken Middlebrook, curator of collections at History San Jose, told KTVU the find is a treasure but that naming the maker will be difficult without a signature or records.

Reporting noted that Stackpole moved to San Francisco in 1901 and later made a Coit Tower fresco in the 1930s under a New Deal art program. He is also said to have carved figures at the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange building and made work for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition and the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition.

According to Smithsonian magazine, he taught sculpture for nearly two decades at the California School of Fine Arts, later called the San Francisco Art Institute. That institute closed in 2022. The building that housed its sculpture department sits across the street from the couple’s home.

The house itself was built in 1948 on what had been an empty lot, Gittelsohn has noted. Unexpected backyard discoveries can be startling, as a Minnesota woman recently hit something solid and found a gravestone.

Historian Anne Schnoebelen of the Treasure Island Museum said the bust could possibly be the work of Stackpole or of two of his students, Adaline Kent or Helen Phillips, who lived nearby. She said it looks as if it could have been one of the faces made for the Court of Pacifica at the Golden Gate International Exposition, but she added that this is not known. That site included Stackpole’s tall statue of Pacifica and other Pacific Unity sculptures.

Schnoebelen told the San Francisco Chronicle there may have been a reason the piece was buried. “It could have been somebody who didn’t like the way it turned out, or maybe Stackpole didn’t like it,” she said. “There is a reason somebody buried it, and maybe they don’t want people talking about it.”

Gatwood offered another idea. He said the statue may have been garden art that was later lost as the yard grew over. “It’s quite possible this statue was displayed in the garden and not so much buried, but just lost,” he said. Such unexpected discoveries can happen during home projects, as when a young couple buying a plot found remains during renovations.

He also told NBC Bay Area the piece may have been given to someone at the house, displayed in the yard, and then fallen from a wooden pedestal after the yard fell into disuse. “Most antiquities are dug up because they were once prized and displayed, and then things happened,” he said.

After local attention, Gittelsohn said a 93-year-old woman took an Uber to their home with her walker and knocked on the door. The woman said she had once held a show featuring Ralph Stackpole’s work.

Gatwood told NBC Bay Area the discovery was exciting. “It’s probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever dug up in a yard, and I’ve dug up a lot of things over the years,” he said. In September, the couple plans to put the sculpture on public display at the American Messenger Gallery in hopes someone may recognize it. “We think someone will eventually recognize it,” Gatwood said.

He said he is building a pedestal to show the bust in the backyard unless it turns out to be a piece that belongs in a museum. “I’ve always thought every yard deserves a nice piece of garden art,” Gatwood told the Los Angeles Times. “This will be displayed in a special way in our yard. I hope to share the photos of our yard when it’s completed with the statue beautifully placed.”