The Bear by Harry Widman
- Title: The Bear
- Artist: Harry Widman
- Medium: Charcoal
- Size: 60"h x 70"w
- Creation date: 1977
- Added to collection: 2017
- Donor: Gift of Mardy Widman
- Campus: Rock Creek
- Location: B3/1 Music Hallway gallery
This impressive drawing was one of a series of large works on paper of animals which the artist made in the mid nineteen seventies and were first exhibited in the Helzer Gallery in 2017 three years after the artist's death. The stark silhouette and open contours create a mysteriously palpable graphic presence of this lumbering, shaggy creature, who emerges as if out of a previous age. Widman had an ongoing interest in the forms of humans and animals, both in realistic depiction ("Figure Study") and in abstraction ("Wading Dog").
This work was generously donated to the collection by the artist's widow, Mardy.