The Museum in the Cemetery

Los Angeles has a lot of museums and many of them are quite small and obscure. One of the oddest is The Forest Lawn Museum. This is a museum in a cemetery.  It is not a museum about cemeteries it is an art museum. Forest Lawn is on a hill in Glendale and was the first of its kind. There are almost no grave stones but flat markers. The founder Hubert Eaton thought traditional grave yards with memorial sculpture to be depressing and wanted a cemetery that looked like a park. On top of one of the many hills that make up the property is a large chapel and attached to it is Forest Lawn Museum.

The permanent collections include the largest stained glass collection in the US and a huge western bronze collection. In the permanent collection are also art representing the peoples around the world and includes a maoi from Easter Island. There is a rather large room that serves as an exhibition space for varying shows. Past shows have included solo exhibitons of Matisse, Goya and Rembrandt.
The museum is well worth the trip as Forest Lawn itself is beautiful and its museum is a hidden gem.