The Astronomers Monument (Los Angeles, California)

 statue, monument, astronomy

The Astronomers Monument was designed and executed by sculptor L. Archibald Garner in 1934.
Born 21 February 1904 in Onida, South Dakota, Garner graduated from Long Beach (California) High School in 1922.
In 1925 he took up drawing with the intention of becoming a commercial artist, and in 1926 was working as such for the San Francisco Examiner.
He became interested in sculpture during that time, and studied sculpture in San Francisco with Ruth Cravath, and then with Ralph Stackpole, at the California School of Fine Arts. He returned to Los Angeles in 1927 and established a reputation as a versatile artist, working as a portrait sculptor and as a sculptor/designer for 20th Century Fox Studios.
His versatility of style and scale, and his ability to sculpt in several media, netted him a number of commissions for public art throughout the 1930s and early 1940s.
The Astronomers Monument here in front of the Griffith Observatory is probably his most well known public work. It pays homage to six of the greatest astronomers of all time:

- Hipparchus (about 150 B.C.)
- Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
- Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
- Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
- William Herschel (1738-1822)

The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), in cooperation with the Los Angeles Park Commission, commissioned a sculpture project for the grounds of the new Observatory then under construction. Using a design by Garner and materials donated by the Women's' Auxiliary of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Garner and five other artists sculpted and cast the concrete monument and figures. Each artist was responsible for sculpting one astronomer. (One of those artists, George Stanley, was also the creator of the famous "Oscar" statuette.)
On 25 November 1934 (about six months prior to the opening of the Observatory), a celebration took place to mark completion of the Astronomers Monument, which had proven to be the most ambitious creation of the PWAP. The only "signature" on the Astronomers Monument is "PWAP 1934" referring to the federal agency which funded the project and the year it was completed.