Douglas Tilden

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Douglas Tilden (May 1, 1861 to August 5, 1935) was a world-famous deaf sculptor who went to the California School for the Deaf in Berkeley, California (now in Fremont, California). He made many statues that sit in San Francisco, Berkeley, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

He has many artworks to his credits:

Football Players, which stands as one of the first permanent artwork on the University of California, Berkeley campus.
Bear Hunt, a statue of a bear protecting her cub and wrestling with two Native Americans, and is featured in the California School for the Deaf in Fremont.
Mechanics Monument, which may be seen in San Francisco that served as an inspiration for the city to rebuild itself.

Many detect a certain homoeroticism in his works because they featured young athletic men who are often unclothed. In the Football Players, many people have noted that the scene of two football players, one is injured and resting on the shoulder of another, and the other is tenderly bandaging the wounds, shows the intimate male bonding in sports as of interdependence between the players. The gay and lesbian community has adopted the statue as representing the best ideal of the visible queer community on campus.

Tilden is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.