News and Events

USC Roski School of Art and Design is excited to present Resonance: Paintings and Prints by Gayle Garner Roski and Ruth Weisberg, in honor of both artists’ legacy and integral roles at the University of Southern California and the Roski School of Art and Design.

Ruth Weisberg and Gayle Garner Roski’s careers distinguished them individually, and the two artists transformed the visual arts at The University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, and far beyond.

A Los Angeles native, Gayle Garner Roski, was an alumna of USC and led her life defined by her deep engagement with her community and her artistic practice. Her watercolors documented her extraordinary life, her travels, and the city she loved. During her lifetime, Roski’s works were exhibited at many institutions and graced multiple books. Alongside her husband Edward P. Roski Jr., she devoted herself to developing the cultural life of the city through her service in numerous organizations including the Department of Cultural Affairs and the California Art Club.

The Chicago-born Weisberg studied throughout Europe and the United States, laying the groundwork for a momentous and respected career. Weisberg has exhibited her widely lauded paintings, drawings, and prints in over 250 exhibitions, including having the distinct honor of being the first artist exhibited at The Women’s Building, and the first living artist to exhibit at both the Norton Simon and the Huntington. As a professor, she has impacted the careers of countless artists during her many decades at the University of Southern California.

Gayle Garner Roski’s philanthropic efforts and dedication to USC led her to cultivate a friendship with Ruth Weisberg, and ultimately culminated in the women’s transformation of the University’s art school. In 2006, when Ruth Weisberg was Dean of the art school (1995-2010), Gayle Garner and Edward P. Roski gave a transformative endowment gift to USC resulting in the naming of the school. The donation was the largest single donation to a university art program at that time and ensured that the school would inspire artists and cultivate their talents for decades to come.

The exhibition celebrates both women’s friendship and shared efforts in supporting the arts in Southern California and marks Ruth Weisberg’s retirement from the university.

Exhibition:  Resonance: Paintings and Prints by Gayle Garner Roski and Ruth Weisberg
Location: USC Roski Graduate Building Gallery, Mateo, 1262 E. Palmetto Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013
Dates: August 1 to 30, 2024
Opening Reception: August 1, 2-4pm

Gayle Garner Roski was well known for her vivid color-drenched paintings in which she shared images from her travels around the world. But her most favorite subject to paint was her native Los Angeles. Gayle considered it a gift that she lived her life in the City of Angels, as she was captivated by its artistry, architecture and culture that she embraced as both vibrant and varied.

In the year 2000, Gayle began documenting the City of Angels in her artwork.  She diligently worked on this project for two decades. The Los Angeles Millennium Series, which collectively represents what she considered to be the most important work of her career, now features 44 watercolor paintings that celebrate not only her beloved city, but also her life.

Publishing a book of this series was one of her life’s dream, and she devoted her final days to this goal. The book, The Gift of Los Angeles, is now available.  The deluxe oversized volume showcases faithful reproductions of the artist’s Los Angeles series and includes imagery of famed landmarks, from Los Angeles City Hall and Union Station to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Original Farmers Market.

The book may be purchased from Gearys Beverly Hills, the famed Beverly Hills luxury retailer that hosted Gayle’s very first solo exhibition in the 1990s. Available at the retail store and via its website, the book has a suggested retail price of $70.00 – and Gearys is donating 100 percent of the book’s proceeds to Augie’s Quest to Cure ALS (augiesquest.org).

Click here to purchase the book from the Gearys website.

Published by Art Works Fine Art Publishing
First Printing: December 2020
Hardcover: 96 pages
Dimensions: 11 x 1 x 18.25 inches
Suggested Retail Price: $70.00

The excitement at the Bowers Museum continues this summer with the July 24 opening of The Gift of Los Angeles: Memories in Watercolor by Gayle Garner Roski.

With her passing in October of 2020, the Bowers pays homage to Gayle with a display that looks at her life, primarily through a group of forty-four watercolors of Los Angeles and some special sites just beyond its borders.

The works featured in the exhibition are each vignettes of her experiences growing up and living in the City of Angels. Peopled by friends, family, and fellow Angelenos, the jubilant scenes tell intimate and relatable stories of the places that Gayle cherished most deeply.

The Gift of Los Angeles: Memories in Watercolor by Gayle Garner Roski is organized by the Bowers Museum and curated by Jean Stern. Artworks are on loan from the Roski Family.

Exhibition: The Gift of Los Angeles: Memories in Watercolor by Gayle Garner Roski
Location: Bowers Museum, 2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, California 92706
Dates: July 24 to November 14, 2021

The Catalina Island Museum presents the exhibition Gayle Garner Roski: Journey to the Titanic, featuring the first public display of 33 watercolor paintings by the late Los Angeles artist Gayle Garner Roski, which document her journey through the North Atlantic Ocean to visit the haunting remains of the RMS Titanic.

“We are excited to showcase these watercolor paintings for the first time and share this extraordinary journey with our members, residents, and guests,” said Julie Perlin Lee, Executive Director of the Catalina Island Museum. “Through Roski’s watercolors, photographs, and film of her exploration below the surface, viewers are invited to experience the legacy of the Titanic and her wreck site from an entirely different perspective.”

A plein-air watercolorist and avid world traveler, Roski explored some of the most remote parts of the globe, always with paints and a sketchbook in hand.  In 2000, Roski boarded the MIR I submersible to explore 12,500 feet below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean to view and paint the remains of the Titanic from the ocean floor. Roski was the first artist to paint the notorious ship from life.

Journey to the Titanic is the first public display of the watercolors that document her journey to the bottom of the sea, poignantly revealing the power that the Ship of Dreams still holds today. Through the pages of her sketchbook diary, Roski’s descent into the depths brings the thrill of adventure and the humanity of Titanic back to the surface for viewers to experience.

The exhibition presents an additional opportunity for viewers to explore the drama of the RMS Titanic’s maiden voyage and complements the museum’s feature exhibition, Titanic: Real Artifacts, Real People, Real Stories, which premiered virtually during the Museum Benefit on October 17. Titanic is a one-of-a-kind exhibition assembled specifically by the museum bringing unique items from private collectors together for the first time since 1912. The exhibition follows twelve passengers onboard and tells their stories through extant artifacts, images, and personal belongings many never having been publicly exhibited before.

Exhibition: Gayle Garner Roski: Journey to the Titanic

Exhibition Dates: November 14, 2020, to October 24, 2021

Location: Catalina Island Museum
217 Metropole Ave.
Avalon, CA 90704

On Wednesday, October 21, 2020, Los Angeles-based artist and philanthropist Gayle Garner Roski passed away peacefully in her art studio at her Toluca Lake home, surrounded by family and her vibrant watercolor paintings that brought joy to so many people. She was 79 and suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

The loving wife of real estate developer Edward P. Roski Jr. and the mother of three, Gayle was born in Los Angeles on September 11, 1941, to Russell Dwight and Mary Lewis Tucker Garner.  As the third of four children, born after sisters Mary Ann Garner and Cheri Munson and before brother Tucker Dwight Garner, she lived her formative years in Hancock Park.

After her high school graduation from the Buckley School, she enrolled at the University of Southern California as a fine arts major. It was at USC that she met the love of her life. She married Ed Roski shortly after his 1962 graduation from USC and then they moved to Quantico, Virginia, where he began his service to this country as a Marine.

In 1966, the couple returned to Southern California and settled in the community of Toluca Lake. She put aside her artistic aspirations as she focused on her family and raising her children, channeling her creative abilities into helping with school projects, sewing costumes for Halloween and skating competitions, and volunteering with Los Floristas to help children with special needs.

At age 50, after her youngest child had moved out of the family home, Gayle was diagnosed with cancer. She used art as part of her therapy to battle the horrific disease, and when she emerged cancer-free, she had the focus and resolve to pursue her lifelong dream: to be an artist.

In the three decades since that declaration, Gayle had exhibited at galleries and museums from Southern California to Scotland. She had been an invited artist in the annual Masters of the American West Art Exhibition at the Autry Museum since 2009. She also regularly participated in numerous exhibitions of the historic California Art Club, including 20 installments of the organization’s signature event, the Annual Gold Medal Exhibition.

Many of her vibrant watercolor paintings depicted the life and land of cultures around the world, as she was an avid world traveler. Gayle explored with her husband some of the most remote parts of the globe – from the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean to view the ruins of the Titanic to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro – always with paints and sketchbook in hand to record her experiences in artwork.

Gayle also shared stories of other cultures as a children’s book illustrator, developing artwork for the multi-cultural book publisher East West Discovery Press. Her first collaboration with this publisher, Mei Ling in China City, a true story set in Los Angeles during World War II, received numerous literary awards.

While she embraced opportunities to use her craft to spotlight rich traditions of people from around the world, her most significant body of work paid tribute to her native Los Angeles. These works, collectively titled the “Los Angeles Millennium Series,” were developed over 20 years, beginning in the year 2000. All 44 of the paintings, which spotlight beloved sites throughout the Southland – from Downtown Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley and Orange County – will be published later this year in the book The Gift of Los Angeles.

Gayle was also a steadfast advocate for her fellow artists, actively involved with public art initiatives as a Commissioner for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and the chair of the Arts and Furnishing Committee for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. She also designed the angel form for two different public art programs that adorned Los Angeles with colorful larger-than-life angel statues decorated by local artists.

Following her years of devotion to arts and art education, in 2006, Ed and Gayle Roski pledged a naming gift to their alma mater, which resulted in the renaming of Southern California’s oldest visual arts school to the USC Gayle Garner Roski School of Art and Design.

Gayle is survived by her husband of 58 years, Ed; daughter Reon Roski; son Edward Roski III and his wife, Colleen Roski; daughter Katrina Roski and her husband, Marc Pearl; and grandchildren Bryce Roski, Austin Roski, Grant Roski, Ashley Roski, Edward Roski IV, Charlotte Pearl, Madeline Pearl and Abigayle Pearl.

Private services will be held.

As an expression of sympathy, memorial contributions may be made to Augie’s Quest to Cure ALS.

Augie’s Quest (augiesquest.org) is dedicated to funding the most aggressive and innovative research and fast-tracking effective treatments, with the ultimate goal of halting, reversing and curing this devastating disease.

The Roski family is extremely grateful for the support and advice they received from Augie’s Quest to help find exceptional doctors for Gayle’s care. The family is hopeful that the efforts of this trailblazing organization will find a cure in the near future, so others do not have to endure the pain that Gayle did.

Donations may be made online at give.augiesquest.org/roski. In addition, donations may be made by check, payable to Augie’s Quest, and mailed to:

Augie’s Quest to Cure ALS
P.O. Box 9886
Denver, CO 80209

Gayle Garner Roski will be one of 64 exhibiting artists in the upcoming Masters of the American West Exhibition and Sale at the Autry Museum of the American West. One of the country’s premier exhibitions for Western art, the Masters will open to the public on Saturday, February 8.

Roski has participated in this exhibition for more than a decade. Her works in this year’s display, now in its 23rd year, feature images of Kachina dolls, the delightful figures carved out of wood by the Hopi to teach young girls about the spirits that are central to their way of life.

With two of her paintings for the Masters, as well as her miniature painting, Gayle continues a personal tradition of incorporating a small treasure into the work – providing the viewer with a memento that provided inspiration during her creative process…..

The Kachina dolls adorning watercolor paintings for the 2020 Masters are “Tawa,” the Sunface that represents the spirit of the sun; “Kwahu” – the Eagle – the messenger between the people and their spirit guides; and a family of Clown Kachinas.

To view artwork in the 2020 Masters Exhibition, click on the links below:

Native American Celebration at the Southwest Museum

Sunface Kachina Among First American Pottery

Eagle Kachina Among First American Baskets

Exhibition: Masters of the American West 2020 Exhibition and Sale
Location: Autry Museum of the American West, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Dates: February 8 to March 22, 2020

Gayle Garner Roski will unveil her newest works in the ever-evolving series of her native Los Angeles with The Gift of Los Angeles, on view beginning September 22 at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.

Roski considers being able to live in Los Angeles – with its vivid colors and vibrant cultures – one of the greatest gifts in her life, and she was compelled to preserve its history in paintings.  Each of the nearly 40 paintings, including her newest work, Santa Monica, tells a story of special people and fond memories.

She views this body of work as a gift to future generations, whom she hopes will embrace the City of Angels as much as she does.

Earthwaves, Gayle Garner Roski’s fifth children’s book, will be published and available through national booksellers on September 10. Focused on ancient methods of navigation, the story follows a wise man and his grandson, who rely on an intimate relationship with nature – the tides, the fish, the stars and the winds – to find their way and explore the oceans of the South Pacific. Roski collaborated with author Michael Smith on this book for East West Discovery Press, a publisher of multicultural and bilingual books.