June/July 2019 85
California Bear
by Beniamino Bufano
One of the few public artworks not directly
commissioned by the city, but purchased from
the Bufano Society of the Arts, this cast-granite
sculpture is one of prolific modernist sculptor
Beniamino Bufano’s more well-known works.
Placed in front of the CENTER FOR PERFORMING
ARTS, its rounded surfaces create the shape of a
bear and typify Bufano’s style of cleanly smooth
forms. Bufano, a longtime San Franciscan until
his death in 1970, often strove to represent a
kind of innocence in his work, as embodied by
the bear’s depiction of simple, pure beauty.
