Beard's Bear

This is a rather famous exam-ple of the work of William Hol-brook Beard. Maybe even better known is a painting that hangs promi-nently at the New York His-torical Society that depicts anthropomorphic bulls and bears of Wall Street brawling in the streets of the financial district. Beard was very popular in his heyday in the late 1800’s and to this day you can still buy reproductions of his work…although I’m not really sure why anyone would want to.

Equally bemusing is the fairly recent (2002) installation of a headstone in Brooklyn’s famous Green-Wood cemetery on Mr. Beard’s grave (he died in February of 1900). The more I look at this photo the more I am puzzled by how this large monument made it through the very tough censors of Green-Wood, who are known for strictly enforcing a ban on “intru-sive” displays, thereby avoiding any sort of “disneyfication” or the inclusion of schlock that might cause controversy in what should be a quiet and contemplative place. In fact, upon installation of Mr. Bear the cemetery’s director, Richard J. Moylan, mentioned the fact (proudly?) that this headstone was the first example of “contempor-ary” art to be installed in decades. So why this exception? Dan Oster-miller, a Colorado sculptor specializing in animals, donated the sculpture and the cemetery itself (they have a “historical fund”) sprung for the fancy granite gravestone, so it’s not like they snuck the thing in on the sly.

I’m not saying I don’t like this chubby, tipsy-looking bronze bear (yes, he’s hollow and clangs when you give him a firm knuckle) but is it appropriate to this particular cemetery? Absolutely not. So how did this happen? Did somebody feel impish at a crucial point in the nego-tiations? Did some silver exchange paws? Are they about to start selling reproductions? It is certainly setting a precedence, and not a good one, if someone else gets puckish with their family plot.