3. The Bear(d)

This arresting grave, complete with bronze bear, belongs to William Holbrook Beard. Beard was a cartoonist and illustrator. His most famous work is the illustration of the bears and bulls fighting on Wall Street, hence the bear that sits atop his tombstone. Beard died in 1900 but was buried at Green-Wood in an unmarked grave in his large family plot.

When Green-Wood historian Jeffrey Richman discovered that this important New York artist was left without a stone to mark his resting place, he and gallery owner Alexander Acevedo, who had done a retrospective of Beard’s work, took out a two-page advertisement in an Antiques magazine, asking for submissions for “A Tomb for the Unknown Well-Known Artist” at Green-Wood. Sculptor Dan Ostermiller gladly obliged with the Bear, and even donated the work to Green-Wood. The sculpture was added in 2002.

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