The Great Bear (1991) is a four colour offset lithograph mounted in an anodised aluminium frame. It is an altered version of the map of the London Underground created by Henry (Harry) C. Beck (1903-74) in 1931. Simon Patterson replaced the names of the underground stations with the names of engineers, philosophers, explorers, planets, journalists, footballers, musicians, film actors, saints, Italian artists, sinologues (Chinese scholars), comedians and 'Louis' (French kings). Each of these categories is listed next to a coloured line (representing the different train lines) at the bottom right of the image under the title 'Key to Lines'. The names on the map range from the obscure, known only to people with specialised knowledge - sinologues, for example - to the well known figures of popular culture - film actors and actresses and footballers. Patterson has not adhered strictly to his key, adding the names of politicians to the line representing journalists, painters to the line representing musicians and Henrys to the line of Louis.