List of memorials to George Sterling

Memorials to American poet and playwright George Sterling (1869–1926) include a World War II ship named after him, sculptures portraying him, paintings of him and his works, streets named after him, George Sterling Park in San Francisco, memorial magazine issues dedicated to Sterling, monuments displaying his poetry, and Sterling's grave in Oakland, California.

• During World War II, the Liberty ship SS George Sterling (MC hull no. 2152) was launched September 19, 1943. Novelist and critic Elizabeth Janeway sponsored the christening ceremony.^[1]

• "George Sterling" (1904) by Robert Ingersoll Aitken: Best known for his sculptures on the United States Supreme Court building, Aitken carved a bas relief portrait of Sterling for display at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.^[2] This sculpture is on permanent display in the Harrison Memorial Library's Henry Meade Williams Local History Department in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

• "Head of George Sterling" (completed 1925, first exhibited 1930^[3]) by Ralph Stackpole: In 1921, Sterling sat for sculptor-painter Stackpole, whom Kenneth Rexroth called "San Francisco's leading artist".^[4] Stackpole first sculpted a plaster of paris model, then carved a block of either tufa limestone or volcanic tuff into a two-foot-tall head of Sterling.^[5] When first publicly displayed in 1930, Stackpole's bust won the San Francisco Art Association's award of First Prize for Best Sculpture.^[6] Art critic Gobind Behari Lal, who had known Sterling, wrote: "Those who knew Sterling's character, and power, feel that he is alive again in this stone."^[7] Three years later, "Head of George Sterling" was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.^[8] Today "Head of George Sterling" is on display on Level C in Dwinelle Hall at the University of California, Berkeley. The sculpture is dirty and needs restoration.

• "George Sterling Death Mask" (1926) by Haig Patigian: Immediately after Sterling's 1926 suicide, sculptor Patigian obtained permission from the manager of the mortuary where Sterling's body was stored to mold a death mask of Sterling.^[9] The death mask was cast in bronze by Herman Steinbrunn of Palo Alto.^[10] One bronze death mask is on permanent display near the librarian's desk in the Bohemian Club Library, San Francisco.^[11] A second bronze mask is in the collection of the Carmel public library's Henry Meade Williams Local History Department.

• "George Sterling" (circa 1926–1927) by Ward Montague: Sculptor and painter Ward Montague (1898–1987) worked with Ralph Stackpole and Diego Rivera.^[12] Inspired by Johan Hagemeyer's 1926 portrait photographs of Sterling (and possibly by seeing his friend Stackpole's "Head of George Sterling"), Montague carved a portrait head of the poet. It was photographed for the December, 1927 Sterling memorial issue of Overland Monthly.^[13] This sculpture's current location is unknown.

George Sterling Park in San Francisco is bordered by Greenwich, Larkin, Hyde, and Lombard Streets atop Russian Hill. A stone bench there was dedicated to Sterling on June 25, 1928. The bench included a plaque with quotations from Sterling's "Ode to Shelley" and "Song of Friendship".^[14]

In the 1970s the plaque was stolen. On July 10, 1982, the missing plaque was replaced with a new one quoting Sterling's poem "The Cool, Grey City of Love" at a ceremony attended by literary historian Don Herron, columnist Herb Caen, science fiction author Ray Faraday Nelson, Jack London's daughter Becky, and poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Lamantia, Donald Sidney-Fryer, and Nancy Peters.^[15]

The new plaque was later moved to its present location at the park's northwest corner.^[16]

A footbridge crossing a ravine in Carmel-by-the-Sea between Torres Street (location of Sterling's house) and Vizcaino Avenue was informally called "George Sterling Bridge". Sterling had used the bridge when he was a Carmel resident.^[17]

The home of composer David Alberto and his wife Iris "... faces the ravine, spanned midway by the George Sterling Bridge, on which face also the homes built by Herbert Heron, Fred Bechdolt, and George Sterling—later acquired by Jimmie Hopper." Some residents wanted the bridge formally named after Sterling, but in the late 1940s or early 1950s the bridge became dilapidated and was removed.^[18]

On October 8, 1950, in Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland, the California Writers Club dedicated a redwood tree near the park's cascade as a memorial to Sterling.^[19] The park is the former estate of poet Joaquin Miller, a friend of Sterling's. Sterling and friends frequently camped in and near Miller's estate from 1891 to 1905, when Sterling lived in Oakland and Piedmont, California.^[20]

The dedication ceremonies included an introduction by Hal Johnson, president of the California Writers Club; reminiscences of Sterling by three people who knew him; readings of poems by Sterling; performances of three songs ("The Hidden Garden", "A Visitant", "Nightfall") with lyrics by Sterling; the placing of a memorial plaque; dance performances to five of Sterling's poems; and a performance of passages from The Redwoods, a Bohemian Club play by Sterling.^[21]

The Sterling redwood was next to a tree honoring his best friend Jack London.^[22] Both trees were in Writers Grove, with other redwood trees bearing plaques to writers. To a visitor standing near Joaquin Miller Road and looking uphill at the Cascade (a long series of stairways designed to resemble water cascading down a hill), Writers Grove is left of the Cascade, uphill from a playground.^[23] Today no plaques are visible on trees there.

• Sterling Avenue in Berkeley is named for George Sterling.
• Sterling Avenue in Alameda is named for George Sterling.^[24]
• Sterling Drive in Oakland is thought to be named for George Sterling.

• Untitled poem: The tomb of the family of artist Charles Rollo Peters is in the San Carlos Cemetery (Monterey, California). A granite monument to the artist's wife, Kathleen Frances Murphy Peters (who died March 15, 1902 at age 32 after giving birth) and their daughter, Kathleen Mary Peters (born February 18, 1902, who on December 9, 1904 accidentally burned herself to death at age two) includes an epitaph poem to both of them with Sterling's signature engraved beneath.^[25] The monument is located in the northeast corner of the cemetery in the Saint Angela Peters Plot. It is not visible on Google Maps due to tree coverage, but is next to a wood fence behind which large construction machines are stored.
• The Triumph of Bohemia: In 1915, six lines from Sterling's 1907 play The Triumph of Bohemia were inscribed in three-foot-tall capital letters across three panels above three seven-story-tall arches forming the western wall of the Court of the Four Seasons in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition world's fair:^[26]

  FOR LASTING HAPPINESS WE TURN OUR EYES
  TO ONE ALONE, AND SHE SURROUNDS YOU NOW--
  
  GREAT NATURE, REFUGE OF THE WEARY HEART,
  AND ONLY BALM TO BREASTS THAT HAVE BEEN BRUISED!
  
  SHE HATH COOL HANDS FOR EVERY FEVERED BROW,
  AND GENTLEST SILENCE FOR THE TROUBLED SOUL.

• "In Memoriam: Dennis T. Sullivan (1852–1906)": On March 16, 1922, a large bronze plaque sculpted by Melvin Earl Cummings was placed in front of the official residence for San Francisco's fire chief at 870 Bush Street in memory of Dennis T. Sullivan, San Francisco fire chief who was killed in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.^[27] The six-foot-tall plaque was paid with donations from firemen.^[28] The plaque includes a memorial poem by Sterling.^[29]
• "The City by The Sea: San Francisco": In the Beach Chalet in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the 1937 ground floor mural San Francisco Life by Lucien Labaudt includes a painted banner arched over a doorway with the quotation "At the end of our streets—the stars", from Sterling's poem "The City by The Sea: San Francisco", and Sterling's name and life dates "1869–1926".
• "Ballad of St. John of Nepomuk": In 1976, the handwritten manuscript of Sterling's poem "Ballad of St. John of Nepomuk" was framed and placed on permanent display in the Bohemian Club Library in San Francisco.^[30]

• "Memorial Day": In San Francisco at the northeast corner of Townsend Street and Embarcadero the San Francisco Art Commission installed a stone monument with Sterling's name, the year 1901, and the quotation "To each the city of his dream", the first line of "Memorial Day", Sterling's first major poem.^[31]
• "Pumas": In 2002, artist Robert Alexander Baillie carved George Sterling's poem "Pumas" onto a large limestone monument in South Carolina's Brookgreen Gardens.^[32]
• "The Black Vulture": In October 2003, a plaque with Sterling's poem "The Black Vulture" was installed at 2080 Addison Street, Berkeley, California.^[33]

In 1926, fine printer and designer John Henry Nash designed and published a broadside memorial to Sterling. The poster-sized 12½-by-19-inch sheet features text by H. L. Mencken and art by William Hancock Wilke (1880–1958). The reverse includes text by Nash explaining why and how he came to create the memorial and "To Ray Coyle," a sonnet written by Sterling as a memorial to artist Ray Frederick Coyle (1885–1924). Nash published only 300 copies of the broadside.^[34]

In December 1926, the board of directors of the Bohemian Club issued a memorial card extolling fellow club member Sterling.

• Overland Monthly v. 35, n. 3 (March 1927): 13 poems by Sterling ["The Grizzly Giant (Mariposa Grove)," "The Dweller in Darkness," "The Day," "To My Wife," "The Voice of the Wheat," "Wings," "Peace," "Safe," "Beauty and Truth," "To Margaret Anglin," "Late Tidings," untitled (first line: "High on Sonoma Mountain"), "In Autumn".]; 3 "Rhymes and Reactions" columns by Sterling; 14 pieces of nonfiction about Sterling by James Rorty, Charmian Kittredge London, and others; 10 poems about Sterling by Robinson Jeffers, Charles Warren Stoddard, and others.
• Overland Monthly v. 35, n. 11 (November 1927): 3 poems by Sterling ["Cool, Grey City of Love (San Francisco)," "The Sowers," "The Black Vulture"; 1 book review by Sterling; 12 pieces of nonfiction about Sterling by Mary Hunter Austin, Robinson Jeffers, and others; 10 poems about Sterling by Edwin Markham. Clark Ashton Smith, Witter Bynner, Ina Coolbrith, and others.
• Overland Monthly v. 35, n. 12 (December 1927): 6 poems by Sterling ["On Reading the Poems of Father Tabb," "To My Wife," "Spring in Carmel," "From the Shadows," "For G.S.," "To a Girl Dancing"]; 20 pieces of nonfiction about Sterling by James Rorty, Charmian Kittredge London, Upton Sinclair, H. L. Mencken, and others; 11 poems about Sterling by Edgar Lee Masters, Robinson Jeffers, and others.

• San Francisco Water v. 7, n. 3 (July 1928): 9 poems by Sterling ("The Cool, Grey City of Love (San Francisco)," "Yerba Buena, July 9, 1846," "Song of Friendship" (Sterling wrote two poems with that title. This is believed to be the first publication of the one with the first line "Give, O Gods, a laughing lass"), "Beyond the Tides," "Homeward," "The Quest," "Reading the Poems of Father Tabb," "To Pain," "The Master-Mariner"; 5 pieces of nonfiction about Sterling by Idwal Jones, Willard Huntington Wright, and others.
• Bohemian Club Library Notes n. 36 (June 1976): "It seems fitting that this number of Library Notes should be devoted to George Sterling," wrote Library Notes editor David B. Magee, "for 1976 commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of his tragic death."^[35] The issue includes "Homage to Our Patron Saint: John of Nepomuk" by Warren R. Howell, which relates the history of John of Nepomuk, the Bohemian Club's adoption of the saint as its patron, why and how Sterling wrote his "Ballad of St. John of Nepomuk," his poem's publication history, and variations between its versions. "George Sterling, 1869-1926" by David B. Magee describes Sterling's history with the Bohemian Club (illustrated by title pages of The Triumph of Bohemia and Truth) and Haig Patigian's death mask of Sterling. A facsimile of Sterling's handwritten poem is laid in as a 6-page insert.
• Piedmont's History v. 16 (Fall/Winter 2015): Almost the entire issue of the Piedmont Historical Society's journal is devoted to "George Sterling" by Gail G. Lombardi, a history of Sterling's eight years in Piedmont, California (1898–1905) and many photographs.

In 1969, in honor of the centennial of Sterling's 1869 birth, the Poetry Society of America published the book George Sterling: A Centenary Memoir-Anthology, edited by the Society's president Charles Anghoff. Anghoff also wrote a 14-page introduction (including a "Biographical Notes" section). The book presents 34 poems by Sterling, including "A Wine of Wizardry".

George Sterling Memorial Prize: After Sterling's death, the Order of Bookfellows instituted the George Sterling Memorial Prize for the best poem of the year that appeared in the Bookfellows' journal Step Ladder.^[36]

Sterling's ashes in a niche can be visited at the Chapel of Memories Columbarium, 4401 Howe Street, Oakland, California. His little niche (the size of a small post office box) is on the second floor of the rotunda dome in the Cypress Room, location B-5-1C, near the ceiling.^[37]

For assistance in finding Sterling's niche, ask in the office to the right of the building's main entrance, or view the Chapel of Memories Columbarium map:.^[38]