Saluting Mount Rushmore creator

Fred Ortega

No American artist has done more to give a face, or faces, to the

nation’s spirit than Gutzon Borglum’s Mount Rushmore. But few know

that this enigmatic sculptor’s final resting place is right here in

Glendale.

Forest Lawn Glendale, where the Idaho-born Borglum is interred,

hosted a special exhibit and presentation of his work Sunday as part

of the memorial park’s Fourth of July activities. Among the

sculptures on display in the Forest Lawn Museum was an original

miniature by Borglum, The Fallen Warrior, which depicts a Native

American warrior who has been struck down from his horse.

“The Borglum museum in South Dakota thought they had lost The

Fallen Warrior,” Andrea Fordham, special events coordinator for the

museum, said. “But we knew we had their lost piece, since it is

hollow, a characteristic of Borglum’s original works.”

The piece was donated by Borglum’s wife, Lisa, who Fordham said

had wanted it to remain in the place where her husband was buried.

“She thought it spoke well of his love for America and the

American West,” Fordham said.

In fact Borglum, who lived with his family in San Marino in the

1930s and ‘40s, could be considered one of the nation’s most

patriotic artists, said Fordham. He is best known for Mount Rushmore,

for which he became one of the first sculptors to harness the power

of dynamite in order to produce works of epic scale. Rushmore, which

he began in 1927, was completed in 1941 by his son Lincoln, after

Borglum’s death.

But his other works, many in bronze, depict classic images of the

American West, both of frontiersmen and Native Americans. Works like

“The Bronco Buster,” are reminiscent of the sculpture of Fredrick

Remington. Borglum was also an accomplished painter and sketch

artist, Fordham said.

His patriotism, Fordham said, went beyond a love for the

democratic ideals of America and included the nation’s pre-European

roots.

“A lot of people that are patriotic leave Native American history

out of the picture,” she said. “I like that he shows his love and

respect for Native Americans through his works.”

Among those enjoying Sunday’s exhibit on Borglum, which included

craft-making activities, was Burbank resident Gloria O’Donohoe.

“I decided to come because I didn’t know anything about Mr.

Borglum,” O’Donohoe said as she put together a tiny American flag

made out of safety pins and colored beads. “I was very impressed that

he was a sculptor in bronze figures, like Remington, who I really

like, and that he was apparently very patriotic. And I learned all

this right here in my own backyard.”

Another guest, Marie A. Arnett of Monterey Park, recommended the

Forest Lawn exhibit, especially to the younger generation.

“This would be marvelous as a tour for younger children,” Arnett,

79, said. “You ask youths nowadays about their country and they don’t

know anything about it.”