Authentic Moai Head at Forest Lawn Cemetery?

I recently ran across the story of "Henry," an authentic Moai head from Easter Island that is on display at the Forest Lawn Cemetery Museum in Glendale, CA. I searched for a mention of it in previous threads but found nothing. I was wondering if anybody had been to see Henry or knew more about him. Here's a link to Forest Lawn's site with a picture of Henry in the bottom right hand corner:

http://www.forestlawn.com/visitors_guide/museum.asp

I've got to go check this out. If nobody else knows about this and it's been off the radar, it definitely deserves some attention. As far as I know, Henry is the only authentic Moai on display in California.

..nice "head" stone....

On 2006-10-17 07:55, Tipsy McStagger wrote:
..nice "head" stone....

boo... too easy, too easy. :)

so what's the story on this "headstone". I didn't see it there on the site.

The only other information I could find on Henry was from a November 1954 edition of The Lapidary Journal. You can Google the full article Online, but here's a chopped-down version:

In 1954, Dr. Hubert Eaton was the President and Founder of the world-famous Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA, and owner of one of the most important gem collections in the United States. At some point around then, he acquired two treasures from the South Pacific -- the Pride of Australia opal and an Easter Island stone head named Henry.

The Pride of Australia is shaped like the continent. The 2" x 3" opal has black and blue veins interlaced with brilliant red streaks. By 1954, it had toured at least five World Fairs as "the greatest opal of Australia, and therefore the greatest opal in the world."

Dr. Eaton named his other acquisition "Henry" in honor of his friend, Henry Wendt, who, while on a treasure hunt with Eaton, found the head in a small boat, being used for ballast by natives who were unaware of its value.

Today, visitors can still visit Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA, and see Henry in the park's museum. Unfortunately, the Pride is no longer there, though -- it was stolen in 1961 and never recovered!

I do hope everyone gets to meet Henry. And take pictures and share them here.

Then, I hope that everyone will work on getting Henry back to his home. I don't doubt he is well cared for, but the ancestors await Henry's return to his rightful place on his Ahu.

Henry is not authentic.

It may have been aquired on a South Pacific voyage by someone, but it is not a real Moai head.

Still worth going to see though!

Yes, Henry's a fake, and most of the rest of the stuff in their museum isn't worth seeing.

Forest Lawn is a strange and creepy place -- it's the cemetery that inspired "The Loved One." They loooove visitors, as long as you're not there to visit the countless dead celebrities buried there. Ask the staff where to find Clark Gable or Walt Disney and they'll throw you out! Getting tossed from Forest Lawn is a major rite of passage for celebrity gravehunters. :roll:

Thanks for the input on Henry. I thought it was suspicious that nobody else had mentioned him, but if he's a fake, that would explain it.

I thought I was on to something, but like the saying goes, "There's a sucker born every minute."

Doesn't set a good precedent for the cemetery, though. If they've lied about their museum exhibits, what else have they lied about over the years? Not sure I'd want to be interred there...

[ Edited by: Trader Tom 2006-10-17 18:00 ]

I toured Forest Lawn a couple of weeks ago with a group and finally had a chance to see Henry the Moai in person. I asked if he had been authenticated or carbon tested and was told that they had never had any tests run on him but that they had no reason to doubt his authenticity...nor did they want to have him tested. So there you have it.

The neatest innovation at the cemetery is their new ability to make customized bronze funeral plaques from photographs that you supply (about $750). The example they showed was of a woman backpacking up a mountainside...but it could just as easily be someone sipping from a Mai Tai and flanked by two of their favorite carved tikis! Just a thought...

On 2006-11-20 22:54, Trader Tom wrote:
I toured Forest Lawn a couple of weeks ago with a group and finally had a chance to see Henry the Moai in person. I asked if he had been authenticated or carbon tested and was told that they had never had any tests run on him but that they had no reason to doubt his authenticity...nor did they want to have him tested. So there you have it.

The people who run Forest Lawn are idiots (see my post above). They love it if you're there to see the questionable artifacts (which sadly, no longer talk). But they'll toss you out if you go looking for dead celebrities (check out http://www.findagrave.com/php/famous.php?page=cem&FScemeteryid=7974 for a VERY long list!)

Now now...I love Forest Lawn, I call it the Disneyland of the Dead. Hubert Eaton was the Walt Disney of the cemetery world. It's right across the freeway from me, and I like to go there with out of towners and show them the kitsch. Nobody ever bothered us there. We even shot some video with King KuKu there. They have prerecorded stories by some of their reproductions of European statuary, and the "show" they make around their giant last supper stained glass window is spectacular:

When walking through their hall of urns, all of a sudden the lights dim, a curtain opens, and this corny story about the making of this window is being related, by this booming voice from hidden speakers! Cool!

So the story of Henry having been used a weight on an Easter Islander's fishing boat (who then sold it to Hubert Eaton) is not true? Or did the Rapa Nui people sell him a fake? So what, the islanders sold tons of fake carvings to Thor Heyerdahl, too. Since when is a fake Tiki a bad Tiki? :)

Because of Forest Lawn, there supposedly are more dead people in Glendale than alive!

Last night I was reading a recent issue of Granta, the Magazine of New Writing, and the last essay was about Forest Lawn Cemetary. The Henry head gets one brief mention, and not by name. It was nice to come here on Tiki Central and discover what he looks like.

The essay is full of interesting trivia - i.e., the statue of David breaks at the same place (above the knee) whenever there is an earthquake ... and the same thing happens to other similar David statues located in 5 nearby cemetaries.

The full article can be found here ..... http://www.granta.com/extracts/2818

Vern

GROG and roommate go to Forest Lawn Museum today to see fantasy art exhibit with art from Syd Mead, William Stout, and others, and some original Disney art from Fantasia, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, etc. GROG also see "Henry" the moai and a large, gorgeous Bouguereau painting. They also have two of the largest paintings in the world, "The Cricifixion" and "The Resurrection". The largest one, "The Crucifixion" is 45 feet tall and 195 feet long! That's one big painting.

GROG also pick up their schedule of upcoming exhibits in 2008 and they will be having a TIKI ART EXHIBIT from August8--January 4th, 2008.

[ Edited by: grog 2007-11-25 17:43 ]

On 2007-11-25 17:42, GROG wrote:
GROG also pick up their schedule of upcoming exhibits in 2008 and they will be having a TIKI ART EXHIBIT from August8--January 4th, 2008.

Is there a tiki art show going on now?

I didn't see a reference to it on Forest Lawn's website:
http://www.forestlawn.com/Special-Events-And-Facilities/Museum-Exhibits-And-Educational-Series.asp

Were there any authentic Moai heads of that size created by the Rapa Nui?

I know the kavakava (ribbed) naturalistic male figures were that size and smaller.
However, did the original Rapa Nui create small scale versions - if for no other reason than to practice for the full-scale Moai?

On 2007-11-26 06:38, christiki295 wrote:

On 2007-11-25 17:42, GROG wrote:
GROG also pick up their schedule of upcoming exhibits in 2008 and they will be having a TIKI ART EXHIBIT from August8--January 4th, 2008.

Is there a tiki art show going on now?

Uh..... did you not see the 2008 mentioned twice in the sentence you quoted above? Back away from the bong.

GROG see your confusion now. The Tiki Art show would START in August 2008, but it would end in January 2009. Sorry about that. You can go back to your bong.

[ Edited by: GROG 2007-11-26 09:21 ]

Has anyone ever been to

Makomanai Takino Cemetery, in Sapporo, Japan?

On 2007-11-26 12:51, Unga Bunga wrote:
Has anyone ever been to
Makomanai Takino Cemetery, in Sapporo, Japan?

Maybe I'll be buried there.
I probably couldn't afford it, so I'll have Bamboo Ben slip me in when he's building one of his famous Bamboo Ben crypts.

On 2007-11-26 12:51, Unga Bunga wrote:
Has anyone ever been to

Makomanai Takino Cemetery, in Sapporo, Japan?

I would have died and gone to Moai Heaven!

My father is buried in Forest Lawn -- a location picked by my aunt who lives nearby. It is almost offensively neat and fussy with little "houses of worship" dotted here and there. In my father's case, his send-off was conducted in the hallowed sanctuary of The Wee Kirk O'the Heather (not far from downtown L.A.)

La Verandah vividly remembers have to take the place of an ailing male poll bearer. We all rather struggled over the sloping hillside with the casket toward the plot because her spike heels kept sinking into the deeply watered grass and she'd have to stop and pull 'em out time and again.

The moral being: When attending a funeral, always wear flats because you never know.

On 2007-11-26 09:17, GROG wrote:

On 2007-11-26 06:38, christiki295 wrote:

On 2007-11-25 17:42, GROG wrote:
GROG also pick up their schedule of upcoming exhibits in 2008 and they will be having a TIKI ART EXHIBIT from August8--January 4th, 2008.

Is there a tiki art show going on now?

Uh..... did you not see the 2008 mentioned twice in the sentence you quoted above? Back away from the bong.

GROG see your confusion now. The Tiki Art show would START in August 2008, but it would end in January 2009. Sorry about that. You can go back to your bong.

For those who are not on Otto's email list:

WHAT: The "In Search of Tiki" art exhibit
WHEN: Friday, August 8, 2008, through Sunday, January 4, 2009
WHERE: Forest Lawn Museum at Forest
Lawn-Glendale, 1712 S. Glendale Avenue, Glendale,
CA 91205. For more information, please call
1-800-204-3131, or log on to http://www.forestlawn.com
HOW MUCH: Admission is free.

"In Search of Tiki," a fascinating juxtaposition
between the old and the new, between the
traditional Oceanic art made by the native
peoples of the Pacific Islands and the entire
gamut of second-generation Pan-Polynesian
artifacts that embellished restaurants and bars
from the 1940s through the mid-1970s. The
exhibit will also feature inventive
interpretations by a new group of artists who are
pushing the boundaries of Tiki Style and creating
objects that have little or no basis in
Polynesian arts.

"In Search of Tiki," which embodies the Forest
Lawn Museum's goal to enrich, inspire and educate
the community, will display traditional Oceanic
Tikis, featuring Polynesian, Micronesian, and
Melanesian figurative carvings and photography of
Tiki archeology in their original settings; Tiki
Americana, featuring 20th century American
carvings and paintings in the spirit of the
romantic South Seas; and current 21st century
tiki artists, such as Josh Agle (better known as
"Shag"), Mark Ryden, Anthony Ausgang, Art Katz,
Atomikitty, R.K. Sloane, and more. Authors
Douglas Nason and Jeff Fox will serve as guest
curators for the exhibit. Major contributors to
"In Search of Tiki," are Oceanic Arts Tropical
D?cor in Whittier, California, and the Marc and
Alice Davis Collection.

About the Forest Lawn Museum
The Forest Lawn Museum was founded in
1951 with a vision of bringing a wide variety of
artwork to the community through both its
permanent collection and traveling exhibits.

Media Contact:
Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks and Mortuaries
William Martin
323.340.4933

Where is the Moai located at Forest Lawn?

In the museum on top of the hill.

On 2006-10-16 16:19, Trader Tom wrote:
I recently ran across the story of "Henry," an authentic Moai head from Easter Island that is on display at the Forest Lawn Cemetery Museum in Glendale, CA. I searched for a mention of it in previous threads but found nothing. I was wondering if anybody had been to see Henry or knew more about him. Here's a link to Forest Lawn's site with a picture of Henry in the bottom right hand corner:

http://www.forestlawn.com/visitors_guide/museum.asp

I've got to go check this out. If nobody else knows about this and it's been off the radar, it definitely deserves some attention. As far as I know, Henry is the only authentic Moai on display in California.

It may be, as the LA Natural History Museum sent theirs to a museum in New York.

Now, I know this one is authentic Rapa Nui.