ALEX LUKAS
2023 - Now
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John Ehn’s sculptures for Old Trapper’s Lodge (1951-1981)
Under the brief tutelage of Claude Bell* (who crafted the Cabazon Dinosaurs and sculptures for Knott’s Berry Farm), John Ehn (b. 1897) spent three decades making elaborate family portraits and racist caricatures of the “old west” to decorate the exterior of his Sun Valley, California, motel. After the motel was slated for demolition in the early 1980s as part of an expansion of the Burbank Airport, Ehn’s environment was designated California Historical Landmark # 939.5, and the sculptures were relocated to the campus of Pierce College in Woodland Hills. The school has been unable to deaccession the highly problematic works, and today they sit in a fenced-off corner of Alvin Cleveland Park, with the most offensive sculptures shrouded in heavy black tarps.
* Ehn dismissed his tutor Bell after just three days, having purportedly learned all the techniques he needed to know by watching the more experienced sculptor work.
Historical photos c. late 1970s from Seymour Rosen’s book In Celebration of Ourselves, a California Living Book published in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Spaces Archives.
2019 - 2022 2016 - 2018 2011 - 2015
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