Part of a sculpture entitled "The Four Ladies of Hollywood", this work is located on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the intersection of Hollywood and La Brea.
The 1993 work by Harl West and designed by Catherine Hardwicke depicts four famous actresses of different ethnic backgrounds as caryatids upholding a stainless-steel art-deco gazebo.
Wikipedia (
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"The Four Ladies of Hollywood gazebo —known officially as the Hollywood and La Brea Gateway—stands upon a small triangular island formed by the confluence of Hollywood Boulevard, Marshfield Way, and North La Brea Avenue at the westernmost extension of the Walk of Fame. It was commissioned in 1993 by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency Art Program and created by the architect, production designer, and film director Catherine Hardwicke as a tribute to the multi-ethnic women of Hollywood. The gazebo is a stainless steel stylized Art Deco lattice structure. The roof is an arched square supporting a circular dome, which is topped by a central obelisk with descending neon block letters spelling "HOLLYWOOD" on each of its four sides. Atop the obelisk is a small gilded weathervane-style sculpture of Marilyn Monroe in her iconic billowing skirt pose from The Seven Year Itch. The domed structure is held aloft by four caryatids sculpted by Harl West to represent the African-American actress Dorothy Dandridge, Asian-American actress Anna May Wong, Mexican actress Dolores del Río, and the multi-ethnic, Brooklyn-born actress Mae West.
The gazebo was dedicated on February 1, 1994 to a mixed reception. Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight called it "the most depressingly awful work of public art in recent years," representing the opposite of Hardwicke's intended tribute to women. "Sex, as a woman's historic gateway to Hollywood," he wrote, "couldn't be more explicitly described." Independent writer and film producer Gail Choice, however, called it a fitting tribute to a group of pioneering, courageous women who "...carried a tremendous burden on their feminine shoulders. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I'd ever see women of color immortalized in such a creative and wonderful fashion." Hardwicke contended that critics had missed the "humor and symbolism" of the structure, which "embraces and pokes fun at the glamour, the polished metallic male form of the Oscar, and the pastiche of styles and dreams that pervades Tinseltown.'"
The sculpture of Wong as a very slim woman, wearing an almost page-boy style hairdoo. Although she appears nude, the viewer can see the traces of a sheer dress. The work is probably close to life-sized...but no doubt adjustments in height had to be made to have all four corners of the gazebo supported at the same height.
Wikipedia (
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"Anna May Wong ... (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961) was the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American actress to gain international recognition. Her long and varied career spanned both silent and sound film, television, stage, and radio.
Born near the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles to second-generation Chinese-American parents, Wong became infatuated with the movies and began acting in films at an early age. During the silent film era, she acted in The Toll of the Sea (1922), one of the first movies made in color and Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad (1924). Wong became a fashion icon, and by 1924 had achieved international stardom. Frustrated by the stereotypical supporting roles she reluctantly played in Hollywood, Wong left for Europe in the late 1920s, where she starred in several notable plays and films, among them Piccadilly (1929). She spent the first half of the 1930s traveling between the United States and Europe for film and stage work. Wong was featured in films of the early sound era, such as Daughter of the Dragon (1931) and Daughter of Shanghai (1937), and with Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express (1932)."
The plaque below her statue reads:
"1906 ANNA MAY WONG 1961/Starred in Silent and Talking Pictures including "The Thief of Baghdad" and "Shanghai Express."