{"id":25424,"date":"2026-08-29T15:18:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T15:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=25424"},"modified":"2026-08-29T15:18:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T15:18:05","slug":"san-francisco-couple-unearths-stunning-limestone-sculpture-tied-to-wpa-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=25424","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco couple unearths stunning limestone sculpture tied to WPA artist"},"content":{"rendered":"


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NEW<\/span>You can now listen to Fox News articles!\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A couple in San Francisco recently unearthed a 150-pound limestone sculpture buried in their backyard \u2014 setting off a search to uncover who created it and how it got there.<\/p>\n

Greg Gatwood was doing yard work at the couple’s Russian Hill home in May when he came across what he initially thought was a piece of concrete buried in the ground as his partner Judy Gittelsohn stood nearby.<\/p>\n

Gatwood told Fox News Digital he tried to pry the object loose with a shovel before grabbing a pickaxe \u2014 and then spotted what appeared to be lips and a nose “peering” back at him.<\/p>\n

ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNCOVER MYSTERIOUS FACE HIDDEN FOR CENTURIES IN BOOK OF REVELATION CITY<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I thought, well, maybe I should just break it into smaller pieces,” Gatwood said. “Then I realized it was a statue.<\/p>\n

“It was like something you see in a movie, almost cinematic, you know \u2014 a big beautiful statue like this.”<\/p>\n

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A San Francisco couple was stunned to uncover a 150-pound limestone sculpture buried in the backyard of their Russian Hill home. Greg Gatwood is shown at right brushing off the sculpture.\u00a0<\/span> (Judy Gittelsohn)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Gittelsohn said she was stunned when Gatwood showed her the enormous, two-foot-wide statue \u2014 and was impressed by the quality of its craftsmanship.<\/p>\n

“I was just shocked,” she said. “What an enormous find.”<\/p>\n

ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNCOVER MASSIVE ARTIFACT DEPICTING PHARAOH THOUGHT TO HAVE CHALLENGED MOSES IN EXODUS<\/strong><\/p>\n

She added, “I was surprised. I was just gobsmacked.”<\/p>\n

Three months after their discovery, the couple is still searching for answers.<\/p>\n

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The couple is searching for answers about the genesis of the mysterious limestone sculpture \u2014 and how it ended up buried in their yard.<\/span> (Judy Gittelsohn)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Gittelsohn, a professional artist, said she researched the sculpture. She believes it dates to the 1930s and may be connected to artists working under the Works Progress Administration (WPA).<\/p>\n

The couple’s home is near the former San Francisco Art Institute, where prominent sculptor Ralph Stackpole taught for decades \u2014 leading Gittelsohn to believe the piece may have a connection to him or one of his students.<\/p>\n

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One clue supporting that theory, she said, is that the sculpture was carved from relatively inexpensive limestone rather than costlier materials such as marble or granite.<\/p>\n

Gatwood believes the statue may have been used as garden art and that it was eventually buried with time.<\/p>\n

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The limestone sculpture weighs about 150 pounds and measures roughly 2 feet wide, according to the San Francisco couple who discovered it.<\/span> (Judy Gittelsohn)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“It’s quite possible this statue was displayed in the garden and not so much buried, but just lost,” he said.<\/p>\n

After the couple received local attention for their find, Gittelsohn said a 93-year-old woman took an Uber to their home with her walker and knocked on their door.<\/p>\n

TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ<\/strong><\/p>\n

The woman \u2014 one of several people who have reached out to the couple since the discovery became public \u2014 told them she had previously held a show featuring Ralph Stackpole’s work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Judy Gittelsohn and Greg Gatwood spoke with Fox News Digital about the mysterious discovery they made in their San Francisco backyard.<\/span> (Fox News Digital)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In September, the couple plans to put the sculpture on public display at the American Messenger Gallery in hopes that someone may recognize the piece or know who created it.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE FOR MORE LIFESTYLE NEWS<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We think someone will eventually recognize it,” Gatwood said.<\/p>\n

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The story of this enormous sculpture comes about a year after a different couple made a mysterious discovery in their backyard as well.\u00a0<\/span> (Judy Gittelsohn)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The story comes about a year after a New Orleans couple made a similarly mysterious discovery in their backyard.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the time, Daniella Santoro and Aaron Lorenz unearthed an ancient Roman funerary artifact that had been missing from an Italian museum for decades.<\/p>\n

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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A couple in San Francisco recently unearthed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}