Upon opening in c. 1912, the school was led by Jean Mannheim and Channel Pickering Townsley.
[3][2] In the early years of the school, Townsley served as director and Mannheim served as the sole instructor and the school offered summer classes with a costumed model posed in the open air and offered outdoor landscape painting in winter.
[4] It was originally located at Stickney Hall, on the corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Lincoln Avenue in Pasadena (now the 134 and 210 freeways), built and donated by Susan Homer Stickney in memory of her sister.
[1] In the 1930s, artist Lorser Feitelson taught at Stickney Memorial Art School, and it was at the school he met pupil Helen Lundeberg, they would later marry and work as artistic collaborators.
[8] Modernist painter Grace Clements, a member of Feitelson and Lundeberg's Post Surrealism group, also taught at the Stickney.