Forest Lawn's(R) Year-Long Conservation and Restoration of 'The Crucifixion' Painting to Be Unveiled at Special Good Friday Service.

GLENDALE, Calif. -- The Unveiling of "The Crucifixion" and "The Resurrection" Paintings Reflects the Cultural Icons Forest Lawn Has Contributed to the Heritage of Southern California Throughout the Past 100 Years

Forest Lawn(R), celebrating "100 Years of Service: Celebrating Life through Art, Music, and Literature" in 2006, announced a special event marking the Unveiling of "The Crucifixion" and "The Resurrection" paintings after a year of work by ConservArt, an organization dedicated to museum quality conservation both for traditional works of fine art and for large scale works of contemporary art and architecture. The service will be held on Good Friday, April 14, 2006, beginning at 6:00 p.m., at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills, 6300 Forest Lawn Drive in Los Angeles.

As part of the Good Friday celebration, "The Crucifixion" painting will be unveiled for the first time in more than a year with its companion piece "The Resurrection." The extraordinary program will feature a new script, musical score and narration. For this night only, The Master's College orchestra and chorale will perform the score with live narration by Lisa Friedman.

The Master's College orchestra is a 68-member group comprised of students from Master's College as well as a selection of professional musicians including several from the LA Philharmonic. The choir accompanying the orchestra consists of 55 students who record and tour throughout the year when not performing concerts on campus. Dr. Stephen R. Opfer, the Director of Instrumental Studies and chair of Music Education at The Master's College directs the orchestra and choir.

"This historical occasion marks the first time the public will see 'The Crucifixion' in a full wash of light which is how it was originally intended to be seen when it was created by Jan Styka, a world-renowned Polish artist, in 1897," said Alison Bruesehoff, museum executive director for Forest Lawn. "This event, one of a series of community celebrations planned for Forest Lawn's Centennial year, looks back to our heritage and highlights our commitment to serving the Southern California community well into the future."

In 1951, the 45-feet high by 190-feet wide painting "The Crucifixion" by Jan Styka was unveiled to the American public for the first time. This dramatic event featured a full orchestra and choir with live narration describing the painting and its meaning in detail. Today, Forest Lawn is re-creating the atmosphere of the 1951 unveiling by displaying "The Crucifixion" after its completed conservation and restoration, which will protect the painting for the future.

In working on the painting, ConservArt employed 10 skilled artists in shifts of six individuals including four trained conservators and two technicians who specialize in the tasks required for this process. This resulted in a unique challenge -- ensuring that the painting looked like it was restored by a single person, not six.

"As we worked, examining the painting in detail from up close, it became quite clear that Styka had reworked the painting many times," said Susanne E. Friend of ConservArt. "The painting is made up of nine separate pieces of canvas, with the one-foot wide piece at the far right being most recently added. Moving a painting of this scale is impossible without incurring many compression damages and losses, and it became clear that the artist simply repainted losses when needed. These areas were stable and did not pose any problems in chemical differentiation during treatment."

During the conservation, the team used a standard palette of about 20 in-painting colors. However, the main colors used, because of the large proportion of sky, were black, white, raw umber, cadmium orange and yellow ochre. Two types of brushes were used; a long handled brush big enough to glaze large areas of old discolored over-painting in the sky and a short handled, fine bristled brush for delicate in-painting on fills. The project consumed 40 #4 sable in-painting brushes and dozens of lower quality brushes for glazing.

Following the program, there will be a reception on the museum plaza and all guests will receive a copy of the Forest Lawn Centennial film and a postcard that entitles them to a free copy of the Forest Lawn Centennial history and pictorial books. Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills is located at 6300 Forest Lawn Drive in Los Angeles. For information on the Good Friday event, call 1-800-204-3131 or log-on to www.ForestLawn.com.

About Forest Lawn

Forest Lawn has been serving Southern California since 1906 with locations in Long Beach, Cypress, Hollywood Hills, Covina Hills, Glendale and Cathedral City. In addition to its renowned Memorial-Parks, Forest Lawn offers a wide range of products and services designed to help Southern Californians celebrate a life. These include funeral planning, funeral insurance, and mortuary services, as well as weddings, educational and community programs, exhibits, workshops and baptisms. Forest Lawn will be celebrating its Centennial, 100 Years of Service, in 2006.

Forest Lawn(R) and Celebrate a Life(R) are registered trademarks of Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks and Mortuaries. All other terms and names may be trade marked by their respective owners.