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A free art museum is hiding at that huge cemetery in Glendale
Tiffanie Turner, "Excerpt from Still Life with Flowers on a Marble Tabletop," 2023.
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Courtesy Tiffanie Turner
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You might know Forest Lawn Memorial Park — the cemetery in Glendale — as the place where a lot of entertainment legends are interred: Walt Disney, Nat King Cole, Elizabeth Taylor, among them.
But it's also home to world-class art and antiquities, like one of the largest religious paintings in the world. It's also a great place to see art for free in L.A. County, with at least a couple of special exhibitions a year.
Right now, it's all about flowers.
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A free art museum is hiding at that huge cemetery in Glendale. Fittingly, the newest exhibition is about flowers
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“Partly because it’s beautiful and it’s worth contemplating beauty, and partly because flowers are a huge part of the culture of a memorial park. So it’s nice to be able to reflect on that in a museum in this setting,” James Fishburne, director of Forest Lawn Museum and curator of "In Bloom: Flowers in Contemporary Art," told LAist.
These are not your everyday floral paintings though. Some of the artists in this show bring flowers into three dimensions.
Take Tiffanie Turner’s 2 1/2-foot-tall paper flowers that are supersized with mind-boggling detail.
“It takes her months to make each of them. The level of anatomical detail is absolutely remarkable,” Fishburne said.
Pieces from other artists in the exhibit — almost all of whom hail from Southern California — include intricate floral arrangements frozen in resin and detailed pen and ink drawings.
Simonette David Jackson, "You Are the Source," 2023.
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Courtesy Simonette David Jackson
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Fishburne, who has a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance art history, was first drawn to Forest Lawn because it has one of the world’s largest collections of full-scale Michelangelo replicas.
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But he says curating these free exhibits is a pretty cool part of the job too.
“I’m just constantly getting to discover new people and showcase their work and sort of play with these really exciting themes. And everyday is sort of a new adventure,” he said.
For his part, Fishburne thinks using cemeteries — like Forest Lawn or Hollywood Forever or even the Verdugo Hills Cemetery in Sunland-Tujunga — as cultural gathering places is great.
“With Southern California having such incredible landscapes, it’s a great way to be both outside and experience art and remember the past at the same time,” he said.
Details
Forest Lawn Museum
1712 S. Glendale Ave., Glendale
Museum hours: Tuesdays to Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission and parking are free
“In Bloom” is on view through Feb. 15, 2026.
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