Big Blue Bear

Denver, Colorado, United States

Public art

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

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A 40-foot blue bear sculpture, officially titled "I See What You Mean", peers through the glass windows of the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. Lawrence Argent's fibreglass-over-steel work was installed in 2005, according to Visit Denver, which calls it an unofficial city mascot.

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Big Blue Bear

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Site-level location · 39.7440° N, 104.9995° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

A 40-foot blue bear stands outside the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, peering in through the windows. Its official title is "I See What You Mean". Visit Denver, the city's tourism bureau, calls it one of Denver's most recognizable landmarks and an unofficial mascot for the city.

The sculpture is the work of Lawrence Argent, born in Essex, England, raised in Melbourne and, from 1993, a member of the University of Denver faculty. It was installed in 2005. According to Visit Denver, it weighs about 10,000 pounds and is made of more than 4,000 fibreglass triangles fitted over a steel frame, at a cost of approximately $395,000. Argent was an early user of 3D modelling and printing, designing the bear digitally before it was translated into those triangles.

The colour has its own story. Visit Denver says the first 3D-printed prototype happened to be made from bright blue plastic, and that the finished bear was coated in a lapis lazuli blue. Argent, in a 2017 interview with Visit Denver, put it this way: "a printout of the design came back blue by mistake, and I thought that was much more exciting." He added that he later learned the black bear was very important to the Native American Ute tribes that lived in Colorado, and that one level of spiritual enlightenment for the Utes was the "blue" level.

Of the bear and its setting, Argent said "the bear needs the building, and the building needs the bear." He died in 2017; Visit Denver also lists a 56-foot rabbit at Sacramento International Airport and a panda in Chengdu, China, among his works.

Visit Denver suggests looking up from the base of the sculpture, stepping back about 50 feet across 14th Street to frame the whole figure against the glass, or viewing the bear from the convention centre lobby.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

A 40-foot sculpture at the Colorado Convention Center, leaning to look in through the glass. Visit Denver suggests looking up from its base, stepping back about 50 feet across 14th Street to frame the whole figure, or viewing it from the lobby inside.

ACCESS

At the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver. Visit Denver describes viewing it from beneath the sculpture, from across 14th Street, and from the convention centre lobby; the building is a working venue.

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The Yearling (21-ft horse on chair, Central Library)

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The Yearling, a giant red steel chair (21 ft tall, 10 ft wide per specialist sources) with a life-sized fiberglass pinto pony (about 6 ft at the ears) standing on its seat, by artist Donald Lipski, outside the Children's Wing of the Denver Public Library's Central branch. Created in 1993, the piece spent 1997 on acclaimed display in New York's Central Park before permanent installation in Denver in 1998. Conceived to give children a jarring experience of scale reminiscent of Gulliver's Travels or Alice in Wonderland; voted Denver residents' favorite sculpture.

Public art

1.1 km away

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