Arnold Foerster sculpted this Beethoven, unveiled on October 14th 1932 at the Public Art Division of the Cultural Affairs Department.

The statue can be found on the edge of Pershing Square, which is the town’s oldest park. Today the statue is… on the roof of a carpark!

Foerster’s Beethoven is similar to the model by Robert Weigl, which had already been used by Fritz Hänlein, in 1910, to make a statue at Heiligenstadt. But the story of it’s conception tells that it was inspired by a photo of Beethoven walking through the woods.

As the plaque indicates, this statue is dedicated to William Andrews Clark Jr., founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The initial project was to erect a statue of Clark to thank him for his generosity. But he prefered a statue of his favourite composer: Beethoven.