Another time
Forest Lawn’s new photo exhibit highlights the history of LA
By Nikki Bazar 11/23/2006
Through Jan. 7, the Forest Lawn — Glendale museum will be displaying the “Icons of LA” exhibit, a collection of more than 100 black-and-white photographs of famous people and places from Los Angeles history.
The photos, which date back to the early 1900s, come from the Forest Lawn photo archives as well as the family archives of renowned local photographers Leigh Wiener and Delmar Watson.
The Forest Lawn archive selections offer photos detailing the history of the memorial park, and also some more recently taken images such as pictures of Encounter restaurant at LAX and the recently erected Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, both taken by photographer Diane Prendergast.
Much of the exhibit focuses on old Hollywood days, revealed through photos provided by the Wiener and Watson archives. Watson, who currently lives in Glendale, was a longtime news photographer, but also has shot hundreds of celebrities since the '40s. On display are Clark Gable, Clara Bow, Lon Chaney and Humphrey Bogart, to name a few. Watson also contributed some nostalgic architectural images, including one of the old Brown Derby, the famous hat-shaped restaurant on Wilshire which closed in 1985 after almost 60 years in business.
“Anytime they can do an exhibit where they show pictures of old Los Angeles to remind people of what they've got now and what it used to be, I think it's great,” Watson says of Forest Lawn's new show. “These photos remind people what life was really like: It was more wholesome, and not so fast.”
Contributions from the Leigh Wiener archives round out the show. Wiener, who moved to Los Angeles from New York in 1946, took literally thousands of photographs in the course of his career. His son, Devik Wiener, chose some stunners for “Icons of LA,” including particularly moving portraits of George Burns, Red Skelton and Ricky Nelson.
“He liked the human element,” says Devik Wiener of his father's work. “His idea was that a portrait should be a revelation of someone, not just a duplication of an image. We all carry around two images: one that we like to think that we have, and the one that we really have. Dad captured what was in between those two. He realized that the psychology of photographing people was very important.”
The exhibit's primary goal was to show Forest Lawn in light of its relevance and contribution to the culture of Los Angeles. The show's curator, Joan Adan, spent a year compiling the perfect photographs to represent this. “It's so important to Forest Lawn to share its art and culture with the city, to have a community outreach and to educate people with the art and the beauty that has always defined the institution,” says Adan.
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