Forest Lawn Rescues Modern Glass
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| Narcissus Quagliata, Brushstrokes of Space, 1985. Forest Lawn Museum |
The Forest Lawn Museum, Glendale, is showing part of a 50 by 12 ft. stained glass mural by Narcissus Quagliata. Brushstrokes of Space was commissioned for the lobby of Oakland's Pacific Bell building in 1985. A recent renovation put the mural at risk of demolition, until it was acquired by the Forest Lawn Museum in 2022. It will ultimately be installed in a new building at Forest Lawn-Covina Hills.
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| Rosa and Cecilia Caselli-Moretti (after Leonardo), Last Supper Window, 1931. Forest Lawn |
Forest Lawn is a cemetery chain best known for kitschy reproductions of European and American masterworks. Founder Hubert Eaton believed that classic art (fake or not) could help sell grave plots. He bought an important group of medieval and Renaissance stained glass from William Randolph Hearst's collection and intended to display it in a museum of stained glass at his Glendale cemetery. The highlight would have been a three-light window created for the Carmelite Church in Boppard-am-Rhein in Germany, by the same artist who created the panels in the Cloisters' “Boppard Room.”
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| Albrecht Dürer (design) and workshop of Viet Hirschvogel the Elder (glass painter), Saint Andrew and Pope Sixtus II, 1502-06. Forest Lawn Museum |
In 1957, a suspicious fire destroyed Eaton’s stained glass cathedral. It seems that Eaton had enemies, and arson was suspected. The fire damaged or destroyed the stained glass awaiting installation, including the Boppard-am-Rhein panels. Surviving the blaze were two small panels designed by Albrecht Dürer and executed by a glass artist in the workshop of Viet Hirschvogel the Elder.
The Quagliata mural is notable as a major work of a contemporary stained glass artist with some reputation. His works are in several art museum collections, including the de Young, Oakland, and Metropolitan museums. Brushstrokes of Space has something the vibe of Kandinsky or a 50s action painter as burlesqued by Lichtenstein. The circular elements, suggesting cosmic bodies, were made separately and incorporated in the window.
Brushstrokes is installed as two large rectangles interrupted by a corner. These represent somewhat less than half the full window, which was bigger both horizontally and vertically. The full window is to be shown at the Covina Hills cemetery.
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| Installation view of Quagliata's Brushstrokes of Space, Forest Lawn Museum |
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| Detail of Brushstrokes of Space |
Comments
The Cloisters's Boppard stain glass cycle is not to be missed.
I have heard the Cloisters bell tower chime the hour day and night, for 45 years. Every Friday at 3:00PM the curators do an hour-long deep dive on a Cloisters work of art. In March they focused one lecture on the Boppard cycle. Sunlight shone onto the glass, and intensified the contrast between the (colorless) grisaille of half the windows, and the rich colors used to represent the figures.
> best known for kitschy reproductions
> of European and American
> masterworks.
Evelyn Waugh, the British writer who in the 1940s mocked Forest Lawn, and my treating LA-type quirks as standard operating procedure worldwide, and figuring the industry of coffins-burials-cemeteries nationally was more alike than different, the Forest Lawns of Southern Cal (particularly the one in Hollywood/Burbank) may be more of a regional phenomenon than assumed. Or something that locals tend to shrug at or take for granted.
However, ancient Egypt's Valley of the Kings was even more Hollywood-ized or over-the-top, But not the pyramids. There's greater doubt about their being used as burial mounds.