The year was 1940. Ellen Browning Scripps, La Jolla’s leading citizen and eminent philanthropist, had been dead for eight years and her home — the landmark Irving Gill-designed residence overlooking the ocean — had become an architectural spectre deserted except for remaining pieces of the doyenne’s furniture. Her famous lath house with its Japanese-inspired gardens was falling into ruins. And the Scripps’ estate had listed the whole slowly decaying-property for sale. Enter a group of enterprising La Jolla artists looking for a place to display their work. The deserted Scripps residence — itself a precursor of the modern movement and representing Gill’s cubist progression — seemed a likely place. The estate’s attorney was prevailed upon for the artists to mount a temporary exhibit. The exhibit kept being extended and the artists put a goldfish bowl inside the entrance to collect funds to keep it going. Within a year, the group had a greatly extended agenda — the purchase of the old Scripps estate to establish a permanent art museum undertaken under leadership of Gordon Gray, a prominent La Jolla resident whose spectacular home at 1900 Spindrift Drive had become a social and cultural gathering place. In 1941, they purchased the Scripps home and grounds for a remarkable sum of $11,000! Such was the beginning of the present-day Museum of Contemporary Art, originally incorporated as The Art Center of La Jolla, a nonprofit institution governed by a board of trustees serving without pay, and administered by a small paid staff. Much of the fledgling art center’s first success was due to Gray’s endeavors. On Feb. 20, 1941, his personal letter to the community seeking support for the facility ran on the front page of the La Jolla Journal newspaper. He encouraged preservation of the house by supporting its conversion to an art museum, pointing out that the price to be paid represented only 1 percent of what she had donated to the community in terms of educational, recreational and cultural facilities. The first exhibits were scheduled on a monthly basis and included many local artists as well as popular figures in the art movement of the greater Southwest. Alfred Mitchell, Ivan Messenger, Franklin Sherwood and Sam Weston were among frequent exhibitors. The Art Center also attracted some unusual international figures such as Great Britain’s Marchioness of Queensberry, who painted movie personalities under the name of Kathleen Mann. Another unique artist featured during its first year was a nine-year-old Navajo Indian boy named Beatien Yazz, whose primitive watercolors of native animals were a source of instant delight. Ted Geisel, recently arrived to La Jolla at that time, also had a show of original illustrations from his new Dr. Seuss book, “Horton Hatches the Egg.” The new Art Center became an immediate success. It was open daily, free to the public and, in the first year, attracted more than a hundred visitors per day. Painting and sketching classes gained in popularity. It quickly became a cultural and social center of the community. Leading figures of the community ranging from Karl Kenyon to Isabel Hopkins served on the board and committees. Toward the end of its first year, a celebration was held on Oct. 18, the anniversary date of Ellen Browning Scripps’ birthday. She would have been 106. — Carol Olten is the lead historian at the La Jolla Historical Society.