Sculptor Raymond Puccinelli (1904–86) likely never imagined the affection traditionally bestowed upon his stone Grizzly Bear. For decades, members of the Cal Band have sought good fortune before home football games by rubbing (with gusto this past season) the nose of the bear that stands alongside Strawberry Creek opposite the band’s quarters in Chavez Student Center.

The stylized statue was carved from diorite in 1944 and installed in 1955, a gift of O.J. Woodward II ’30. Nearly four feet long and two feet tall, it was the first bear statue of appreciable size on campus.

A San Francisco native and professor of sculpture and drawing at Berkeley in the ’40s, Puccinelli, also renowned for his bronze works, was considered a link between earlier figurative sculptors, such as Auguste Rodin, and those of the post-abstract school, and was influenced by artists Diego Rivera and Beniamino Bufano.