Kobe Bryant’s Oscar-winning moment shines in new Hollywood mural
Kobe #Kobe
Kobe Bryant may not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — yet — but the late Lakers legend is cast in a new mural unveiled Thursday, June 3, at the Hollywood & Highland entertainment complex.
This time Bryant is depicted clad in a tuxedo and kissing the Oscar he won in 2018 for the animated short film “Dear Basketball.” The five NBA Championship trophies won with the Los Angeles Lakers during his 20-year career also line up like ducks in a row as part of the mural, created by Santa Ana artist Brian Peterson.
Bryant, 41, his daughter Gianna and seven other people died Jan. 26, 2020, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas on their way to a youth basketball game. Hundreds of murals honoring Bryant have since popped up around Southern California. Peterson, who still has the Kobe Bryant rookie cards he collected as an adolescent, spent a little over three days painting the mural, which stands 25 feet high and 42.5 feet wide.
“The Kobe you are going to see here today, the ‘storytelling Kobe,’ is something we can all do” said Peterson before unveiling the mural. “Every single one of us has the power to tell stories to leave a legacy to pass down things from generation to generation. And at this wall you’ll see a crescendo of Kobe’s life.”
The Hollywood & Highland mural is on the fourth-floor terrace of the center at 6801 Hollywood Blvd., within steps of the Dolby Theatre, where Bryant received the Oscar at the Academy Awards ceremony. DJM Capital Partners commissioned the mural, visible to passersby on the street, as part of a public arts initiative.
Peterson, well known in Orange County for his portraits of homeless people, painted his first Los Angeles-area mural last year, a tribute to the leaping skills of Bryant and Los Angeles Dodger Mookie Betts, and the Los Angeles community’s ability to “rise above.” It faces the parking lot of Philippe the Original eatery near Union Station.
Peterson said during Thursday’s event that it was while he was painting that mural of Betts and Bryant, recently inducted posthumously into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, that he got hit with the idea — that “no one’s painted the mural that Kobe would have wanted.”
“I have this idea of painting a mural of Kobe receiving an Oscar,” he said he told Hollywood & Highland officials.
“We are excited to work closely with Brian Peterson and artists like him to support public art initiatives,” said Ed Murphy, general manager of the Hollywood & Highland center. “We hope that through these endeavors we continue to deepen our connection with the incredible community of Los Angeles and capture the spirit of a city that exudes the qualities of strength and resilience that Kobe Bryant embodied so profoundly.”
Peterson added: “Let this wall be an inspiration to you to build legacy, to build community, to inspire youth and to carry on what Kobe left here for us all.”
Last week, Peterson posted on Facebook about a visit Vanessa Bryant made to see the mural before the unveiling ceremony. Peterson was there and posed in front of the mural with her. Asked later how she liked his depiction of her late husband, Peterson said, “She loved it. That meeting was so special. So amazing.”
Staff photographer Sarah Reingewirtz contributed to this report