The mission of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture is to advance arts, culture, and creativity throughout LA County. We fulfill our mission by providing services and support in areas including grants and technical assistance for nonprofit organizations; professional development opportunities; commissioning civic artworks and managing the County’s civic art collection; implementing countywide arts education initiatives; research and evaluation; career pathways in the creative economy; free community programs; and cross sector creative strategies that address civic issues. This work is framed by the County’s Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative and a longstanding commitment to fostering access to the arts.
One of the oldest artworks in the collection, Louis Aimé Lejeune was originally commissioned in 1930 by Anita Baldwin to create this work. Baldwin was a well-known patron of the arts and daughter of southern California land developer E.J. Baldwin. The title, Je N'Oublierai Pas, translates as “I will not forget,” a phrase which appears on the Baldwin family crest. The artwork is a statue of a woman standing beside a low column while her arms encircle an urn. The column is decorated with a bas relief image of a squirrel holding three acorns, below the squirrel are three pairs of oak leaves, as well as the phrase "Je N'Oublierai Pas" carved into the base. Oak trees were significant to the Baldwin family. To honor her father’s love of oaks, Anita Baldwin named her estate Anoakia. In 1991 the manager of the Baldwin estate, Lowry McCaslin, donated the sculpture to Los Angeles County in memory of his friend, Richard A. Grant, Sr., father of the president of the California Arboretum Foundation Board of Trustees. McCaslin also donated the funds to relocate it to the Los Angeles County Arboretum. In 2008 the sculpture was conserved and relocated within the arboretum because the first location was among trees which were contributing to condition issues. Now the sculpture is out in the open for all to enjoy.
About the Artist:
Louis Aimé Lejeune, the son of a woodworker and cabinetmaker, was born in Normandy in 1884. As an adolescent, Lejeune studied design at the École Bernard Palissy in Paris and later received a scholarship to attend the École des Beaux-Arts. Lejeune's work was popular in the early twentieth century and many European and American museums collected his pieces. He came to California in 1926 to complete a portrait bust of Horace Huntington, and it was then that Anita Baldwin commissioned him for both Je N’Oublierai Pas and a bronze fountain at Anoakia’s entrance.
