More than 600 murals depicting American professional basketball player Kobe Bryant have been painted in dozens of countries, [1] including Croatia, Haiti, Uganda, and the United States. [2] Many of these were created following Bryant's death in a helicopter crash in 2020.
A mural in Laredo, Texas, took ten months to complete. [3]
The website KobeMural.com has identified and mapped hundreds of murals in Southern California. [4] [5]
There are many murals of Bryant in Greater Los Angeles, [6] [7] including in Long Beach and Venice. [8] In Downtown Los Angeles, Jonas Never painted a mural on Lebanon Street. The Nelson's Liquor in Burbank has a mural by Isaac Pelayo. The Western Avenue side of the United Auto Center in Jefferson Park has a mural by Danny Mateo. In Melrose, JC Ro painted a mural on the side of a Shoe Palace store. The Burger City Grill in Torrance has a mural by Mike Trujillo. In South Los Angeles' Westmont community, a mural by Manny Sayes appears on the JS Liquor & Market at the intersection of Century Boulevard and Vermont. [9]
There are several murals of Bryant in Orange County, [10] and others in the San Francisco Bay Area. [11]
Orange County is a county located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, and more populous than 19 American states and Washington, D.C. Although largely suburban, it is the second-most-densely-populated county in the state behind San Francisco County. The county's three most-populous cities are Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Irvine, each of which has a population exceeding 300,000. Santa Ana is also the county seat. Six cities in Orange County are on the Pacific coast: Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente.
Kobe Bean Bryant was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of basketball, Bryant won five NBA championships and was an 18-time All-Star, 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. He ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. Bryant was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020 and named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021.
John Wayne Airport is an international commercial and general aviation airport that serves Orange County and the Greater Los Angeles area, in the U.S. state of California. The airport is located in an unincorporated area of Orange County, and it is owned and operated by the county. John Wayne Airport is surrounded by the cities of Irvine, Newport Beach, and Costa Mesa, although its IATA airport code is registered to Santa Ana, the county seat. Originally named Orange County Airport, the Orange County Board of Supervisors renamed the airport in 1979 in honor of actor John Wayne, who lived in neighboring Newport Beach and died that year. A statue of John Wayne was installed at the airline terminal in 1982.
Crypto.com Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in downtown Los Angeles. Opened on October 17, 1999 as the Staples Center, it is located next to the Los Angeles Convention Center complex along Figueroa Street, and has since been considered a part of L.A. Live. Owned and operated by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), it is the home venue of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL)—which are both owned in part by AEG's founder Philip Anschutz, as well as the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.
Los Angeles Union Station is the main train station in Los Angeles, California, and the largest passenger rail terminal in the Western United States. It opened in May 1939 as the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, replacing La Grande Station and Central Station.
Gerald Hatten "Jerry" Buss was an American businessman, investor, chemist, and philanthropist. He was the majority owner of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), winning 10 league championships that were highlighted by the team's Showtime era during the 1980s. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor. Buss owned other professional sports franchises in Southern California.
Pico station is an at-grade light rail station on the Los Angeles Metro Rail system located on Flower Street at the intersection of Pico Boulevard. The station also has southbound bus stops on Flower Street, across from the station and northbound bus stops on Figueroa Street, one block to the west. Pico station serves the South Park and Figueroa/Convention District neighborhoods.
Mark Keppel High School (MKHS) is a four-year California Distinguished School located in the city of Alhambra, California, in the Alhambra Unified School District. The school is in a residential neighborhood, directly south of the abutting Interstate 10, and just across the street of the northern boundary of Monterey Park. Mark Keppel serves students from portions of Alhambra and Monterey Park. Mark Keppel has been accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges—for the first time in 1965 and most recently in 2020, for a fixed term after each evaluation.
Figueroa Street is a major north-south street in Los Angeles County, California, spanning from the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington north to Eagle Rock. A short, unconnected continuation of Figueroa Street runs just south of Marengo Drive in Glendale to Chevy Chase Drive in La Cañada Flintridge.
Millard Owen Sheets was an American artist, teacher, and architectural designer. He was one of the earliest of the California Scene Painting artists and helped define the art movement. Many of his large-scale building-mounted mosaics from the mid-20th century are still extant in Southern California. His paintings are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, the National Gallery in Washington D.C.; and the Los Angeles County Museum.
Westlake/MacArthur Park station is an underground rapid transit, known locally as a subway, station on the B Line and D Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. The station is located near the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westlake, after which the station is named, along with MacArthur Park, which is located across the street. Unlike most of Metro's other underground stations, which are built directly under a street, the Westlake/MacArthur Park platform is located south of Wilshire Boulevard and between 7th Street. This design allowed a train storage area to be built under MacArthur Park, and necessitated draining the lake for several years to excavate and build the tracks.
Allison Hueman is a Filipino-American graffiti artist, painter, and illustrator, based in Oakland, California. Hueman's best-known works include the Golden State Warriors 2022-23 City Edition Uniforms & basketball court, Bloom, a mural in the Los Angeles Arts District commemorating community advocate Joel Bloom, and the cover artwork for Pink’s 2019 record, Hurts 2B Human. As street art is a medium dominated by men, Hueman is noted as a female artist who has achieved significant renown.
The 2019–20 NBA season was the 74th season of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The regular season began on October 22, 2019, and originally was supposed to end on April 15, 2020. The 2020 NBA All-Star Game was played on February 16, at the United Center in Chicago, and was won by Team LeBron, 157–155. The playoffs were originally scheduled to begin on April 18, and end with the NBA Finals in June.
Royyal Dog, is a Korean graffiti writer and street artist. He is best known for his photorealistic murals of African American women in traditional Korean hanbok. Shim started gaining recognition in 2016 for his murals featuring rap icons and multiculturalism in the United States.
On January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter crashed in the city of Calabasas, California, around 30 mi (48 km) northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, while en route from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo Airport. All nine people on board were killed: retired professional basketball player Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna; baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife Keri, and his daughter Alyssa; Sarah Chester and their daughter Payton; basketball coach Christina Mauser; and the pilot, Ara Zobayan.
John Edward Altobelli was an American college baseball coach who worked for 27 seasons at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California. During his career, he led the Pirates to four California state junior college titles and in 2019 was named National Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association.
Kobe Bryant Day is a day that is celebrated on August 24 in Los Angeles and Orange County commemorating the life of basketball player Kobe Bryant. The date was chosen as the holiday because of Bryant's numbers on his jerseys, as well as it being the day after his birthday, August 23. On July 27, 2021, California Congresswoman Michelle Steel introduced a resolution that would recognize the day nationally.
Vanessa Marie Bryant is an American businesswoman, philanthropist, and model. She is the widow of American professional basketball player Kobe Bryant. With her husband, she founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Foundation in 2007 to provide scholarships to minority college students worldwide. Bryant leads the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting child athletes who are in need.
Greater Los Angeles, California, is home to thousands of murals, earning it the nickname "the mural capital of the world" or "the mural capital of America." The city's mural culture began and proliferated throughout the 20th century. Murals in Los Angeles often reflect the social and political movements of their time and highlight cultural symbols representative of Southern California. In particular, murals in Los Angeles have been influenced by the Chicano art movement and the culture of Los Angeles. Murals are considered a distinctive form of public art in Los Angeles, often associated with street art, billboards, and contemporary graffiti.