Forest Lawn Brings Home the Gold ... and the Bronze, Silver, Copper...

Since 1861, 3,459 individuals have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Of the 770 Nobel Laureates, 112 received the Nobel Peace Prize. And nearly 36,000 individual and team Olympic medals have been awarded since 1932.

Through a priceless exhibit of more than 300 hand-crafted medals on loan from recipients and artists of the American Medallic Sculpture Association (AMSA), Forest Lawn Museum introduces medallic art to Los Angeles. The medals, on exhibit beginning Jan. 22, are rare in their artistry, detail and beauty and serve as art pieces expressing thoughts about life. The art of medal making dates back hundreds of years and is now a major form of contemporary artistic expression worldwide.

This unprecedented show will feature the Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to Walter Ehlers for heroism during WWII, on loan courtesy of Walter Ehlers, CMH; a 1996 Olympic gold medal for soccer which was not awarded during the Atlanta Games, on loan from the United States Olympic Committee; Charles Gates Dawes’ Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded jointly to Dawes and Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain in 1925 for their work on the Reparations Committee, an organization formed to devise a plan for Germany to repay its war debts to the allies and to create a process for stabilizing German currency and balancing its post-war budget; medals by Richard Bonham, Karen Worth and Geri Gould, all internationally known artists; and medals from the Jewish Hall of Fame and Historical Medal Collection.

All the medals on display were hand-designed to reflect the artists’ vision in honoring incredible feats of skill, valor and humanity by people of distinction.

Medals were fashioned from a variety of materials including bronze, silver, copper, gold, iron, steel, aluminum, plastics, glass, stone, ceramic and bonded bronze.

Each of the 36 AMSA exhibiting artists drew on a range of processes including die-struck for medals requiring high-volume production, the cast or lost wax method for medal editions of under 100, and fabrication (inclusion of found objects, machined, and hand constructed) for medals with editions of six or fewer pieces.

Between 30 and 50 percent of the medals in the exhibit were fabricated with the cast or lost wax method. The exhibit will feature detailed displays showing the step-by-step process required for both the die-struck and cast method processes.

For information, visit www.forestlawn.com or call 800-204-3131. Forest Lawn Memorial Park is located at 1712 S. Glendale Ave. in Glendale.