Marco Polo di Suvero (born September 18, 1933, in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

, China), better known as Mark di Suvero, is an

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

sculptor and 2010 National Medal of Arts recipient.

Biography

Early life and education

Marco Polo di Suvero was born to Matilde Millo di Suvero and Vittorio di Suvero (later known as Victor E.), both Italians of Sephardic Jewish descent. Di Suvero was one of four children, the eldest being Victor di Suvero. His father was a naval

attaché In diplomacy, an attaché is a person who is assigned ("to be attached") to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency. Although a loanword from French, in English the word is not modified accord ...

for the Italian government and the family resided in Shanghai until his father was relocated to

Tientsin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

shortly after the birth of the family's last son in 1936. With the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, di Suvero immigrated to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

with his family in February 1941 aboard the S.S. ''President Cleveland''. Di Suvero attended

City College of San Francisco City College of San Francisco (CCSF or City College) is a public community college in San Francisco, California. Founded as a junior college in 1935, the college plays an important local role, annually enrolling as many as one in nine San Franci ...

from 1953 to 1954, followed by the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

from 1954 to 1955. He began creating sculptures while at UCSB after reflecting that he couldn't make an original contribution in his philosophy major. Under the guidance of Robert Thomas, who allowed di Suvero to take his sculpting course, his work began to flourish. He transferred to the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and graduated with a B.A. in philosophy in 1957.

Career

After graduating from college, di Suvero moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1957 to pursue a sculpting art career. He worked part-time in construction and began to incorporate wood and metal from demolition sites into his work. Mark di Suvero gained an almost instant recognition among art critics with his first solo exhibit at the

Green Gallery The Green Gallery was an art gallery that operated between 1960 and 1965 at 15 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City. The gallery's director was Richard Bellamy, and its financial backer was the art collector Robert Scull. Green Gallery ...

in the fall of 1960. ''

Arts Magazine ''Arts Magazine'' was a prominent monthly magazine devoted to fine art. It was established in 1926 and last published in 1992. History Early years Launched in 1926 and originally titled ''The Art Digest,'' it was printed semi-monthly from Octobe ...

s editor wrote «From now on nothing will be the same. One felt this at di Suvero's show. Here was a body of work at once so ambitious and intelligent, so raw and clean, so noble and accessible, that It must permanently alter our standards of artistic effort.»Hilton Kramer
A playful storm of sculpture
''Nytimes.com'', 25 January 1976 Shortly thereafter, he was involved in a near-fatal elevator accident on March 26, 1960, while working at a construction site. He had a broken back and severe spinal injures; doctors believed he wouldn't be able to walk again. While in rehabilitation, he learned to work with an arc welder which became critical for later pieces. He made a recovery in four years and could walk without assistance by 1965. He is one of the sixteen artists included in the book Chronicles of Courage: Very Special Artists as a result of this accident and the subsequent effect it had upon his health. Di Suvero was a founding member of the

Park Place Gallery The Park Place Gallery was a contemporary cooperative art gallery, in operation from 1963 to 1967, and was located in New York City. The Park Place Gallery was a notable as a post-World War II gallery for both its location and that it supported a ...

in 1963 with

Forrest Myers Forrest Warden Myers, also known as Frosty Myers (born 1941 in Long Beach, California) is an American sculptor. He is best known for his pieces ''Moon Museum'' (1969) and ''The Wall'' (1973), the latter being a monumental wall sculpture in the S ...

Leo Valledor Leo Valledor (1936–1989) was a Filipino-American painter who pioneered the hard-edge painting style. During the 1960s he was a member of the Park Place Gallery in Soho, New York City, which exhibited many influential and significant artists of ...

Peter Forakis Peter Forakis (September 22, 1927 – November 26, 2009) was an American artist and professor. He was known as an abstract geometric sculptor. Early life and education Peter Forakis was born on September 22, 1927, in Hanna, Wyoming. The son o ...

, among others, until the Gallery's closure on July 31, 1967. Di Suvero protested the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

, for which he was twice arrested, before he left the United States in 1971. During his four-year self-exile, he exhibited his works in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, taught at the Università Internazionale dell'Arte, and lived in Chalon-sur-Saône,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

where he maintained one of his studios on a barge until 1989. His French barge, ''Rêve de signes'', has since been turned into La Vie des Formes, an atelier for emerging artists, which has been moored at

Montceau-les-Mines Montceau-les-Mines () is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. It is the second-largest commune of the metropolitan Communauté urbaine Creusot Montceau, which lies southwest of ...

since 2009. In 1975, his sculptures were exhibited in the

Tuileries Garden The Tuileries Garden (french: Jardin des Tuileries, ) is a public garden located between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Created by Catherine de' Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in ...

in Paris, the first living artist to hold an exhibition there.Karen Michell
Sculptor Mark Di Suvero Creates Joy Out Of Steel
''Npr.org'', 20 October 2019 He later returned to the United States and opened a studio in

Petaluma, California Petaluma (Miwok: ''Péta Lúuma'') is a city in Sonoma County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 according to the 2020 census. Petaluma's name comes from the Miwok village na ...

in 1975. While the Petaluma studio is still active, di Suvero moved to

and opened a studio there. In 1976, the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

housed a retrospective exhibition of di Suvero's smaller structures, while the city of New York exhibited some of his larger sculptures all around town. His 1966 sculpture, ''Praise for Elohim Adonai'', was erected in front of the

Seagram Building The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with minor assistance from Philip Johnson, Ely Jacques Kahn, ...

. He founded the Athena Foundation in 1977 and

Socrates Sculpture Park Socrates Sculpture Park is an outdoor museum and public park where artists can create and exhibit sculptures and multi-media installations. It is located one block from the Noguchi Museum at the intersection of Broadway and Vernon Boulevard in th ...

in 1986, both of which function to assist artists. In 2019, his tallest piece, ''E=MC 2'', was moved from France to the

Storm King Art Center Storm King Art Center, commonly referred to as Storm King and named after its proximity to Storm King Mountain, is an open-air museum located in New Windsor, New York. It contains what is perhaps the largest collection of contemporary outdo ...

in upstate New York.Gabriella Angeleti
Storm King installs sky-high sculpture by Mark di Suvero
''Theartnewspaper.com'', 17 July 2019

Personal life

Di Suvero currently lives in the

Astoria, Queens Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeast ...

neighborhood of

with his second wife, Kate D. Levin, whom he married in 1993, and daughter. Levin, a former City College of New York teacher, served as Commissioner of the

New York City Department of Cultural Affairs The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) is the department of the government of New York City dedicated to supporting New York City's cultural life. Among its primary missions is ensuring adequate public funding for non-profit cultur ...

from 2002 to 2013, and has worked under the

Ed Koch Edward Irving Koch ( ; December 12, 1924February 1, 2013) was an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, film critic, and television personality. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was ma ...

and Michael Bloomberg administrations. Di Suvero was previously married to architect Maria Teresa Caparrotta, whom he met while living in Italy, but later divorced.

Art

His early works were large outdoor pieces that incorporated wooden timbers from demolition buildings, tires, scrap metal, and structural steel. This exploration has transformed over time into a focus on H-beams and heavy steel plates. Many of the pieces contain sections that are allowed to swing and rotate giving the overall forms a considerable degree of motion. He prides himself on his hands-on approach to the fabrication and installation of his work. Di Suvero pioneered the use of a crane as a sculptor's working tool. His style is associated with the abstract expressionism movement but directly evokes the spirit of the Russian post-revolution

constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...

. Constructivism is strongly associated with concepts of a utopian socialist reconstruction but came crashing down when the Stalin and Hitler empires failed. Di Suvero is the first artist post-war to revive the constructivist movement. The sculptures can be touched, and they are resistant enough to be climbed on. Some of his work includes: * ''Pre-Columbian'' (1964), acquired by the

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...

in 2000 * '' Bunyon's Chess'' (1965) (

Olympic Sculpture Park The Olympic Sculpture Park, created and operated by the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), is a public park with modern and contemporary sculpture in downtown Seattle, Washington. The park, which opened January 20, 2007, consists of a outdoor sculpture mu ...

) * ''

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

'' (1966) * '' Are Years What? (for Marianne Moore)'' (1967) * ''

Snowplow A snowplow (also snow plow, snowplough or snow plough) is a device intended for mounting on a vehicle, used for removing snow and ice from outdoor surfaces, typically those serving transportation purposes. Although this term is often used to re ...

'' (1968) * ''Victor's Lament'' (1969-1970) * '' The Lovers'' (1971-1973) * ''For Handel'' (1975),

Western Washington University Western Washington University (WWU or Western) is a public university in Bellingham, Washington. The northernmost university in the contiguous United States, WWU was founded in 1893 as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School, succeeding a pri ...

Bellingham, Washington Bellingham ( ) is the most populous city in, and county seat of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It lies south of the U.S.–Canada border in between two major cities of the Pacific Northwest: Vancouver, British Columbia (loc ...

* '' The Calling'' (1981-1982) *'' Shoshone'' (1982),

public art Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically acce ...

sculpture, Los Angeles, California * ''

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

'' (1983) * ''

Aurora An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...

'' (1992-1993), purchased by the National Gallery of Art from the

Gagosian Gallery Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in P ...

(NY) in 1996 * ''E=MC 2'' (1992-1993), moved from France to the

in upstate New York in 2019, the artist's largest piece so far. * ''Galileo'' (1996), acquired by the Daimler Art Collection in 1998 * ''

Joie de Vivre ( , ; "joy of living") is a French phrase often used in English to express a cheerful enjoyment of life, an exultation of spirit. It "can be a joy of conversation, joy of eating, joy of anything one might do… And ''joie de vivre'' may be ...

'' (1998)
''Pax Jerusalemme''
(1998-1999), Legion of Honor, San Francisco * '' The Sieve of Eratosthenes'' (1999), Stanford University *''

Declaration Declaration may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Declaration'' (book), a self-published electronic pamphlet by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri * ''The Declaration'' (novel), a 2008 children's novel by Gemma Malley Music ...

'' (2001),

sculpture (originally temporary, considered permanent as of 2020), Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California *'' Orion'' (2006), arriving at the

University of Michigan Museum of Art The University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan with is one of the largest university art museums in the United States. Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alumni Memorial Hall ori ...

in 2008 as a long-term loan and purchased in 2019 * '' Clock Knot'' (2007) * ''Paintbrush'' (2009), located on the Pratt Institute campus. Di Suvero's sculptures and career were the subjects of the 1977 film, '' North Star: Mark di Suvero''. The film was produced by François De Menil and by art historian Barbara Rose, and it featured music composed by Philip Glass. The film was released as a DVD in 2012. In May 2013, some of his most famous sculptures were exhibited in the

Crissy Field Crissy Field is a public recreation area on the northern shore of the San Francisco Peninsula in California, United States, located just east of the Golden Gate Bridge. It includes restored tidal marsh and beaches. Crissy Field is a former Un ...

park of San Francisco.

Critics

Some critics deny the novelty of di Suvero's art, arguing he just inflated an established concept to greater dimensions. In 1975, William Rubin argued he merely vulgarized the style of abstract expressionism set forth by

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

and

Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...

. When ''Pax Jerusalemme'' was installed in a prominent spot in front of the Legion of Honor in 2000, Kenneth Baker in the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...

'' dismissed it as "mediocre." But remarking on the installation of the artist's colossal ''E=MC 2'' at the

, Jason Farago in the ''New York Times'' wrote that di Suvero "understands better than almost any artist the distinction between size and scale—and this serene work, breathing easy in Storm King's largest field, feels as approachable as a family member."

Honors and awards

*2000:

International Sculpture Center The International Sculpture Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in 1960 by Elden Tefft and James A. Sterritt at the University of Kansas. It is currently located on the old New Jersey Fairground in Hamilton, New Jersey Its goal is ...

's Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award *2005: Winner in the Arts and Humanities category at the 11th Annual

Heinz Awards The Heinz Awards are individual achievement honors given annually by the Heinz Family Foundation. The Heinz Awards each year recognize outstanding individuals for their innovative contributions in three areas: the Arts, the Economy and the Enviro ...

, which came with a $250,000 prize. *2010: **Medal of the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washingt ...

by the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

**Winner of the National Medal of Arts, presented on March 2, 2011, by

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

. *2013:

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

Gold Medal

References

External links

National Medal of Arts biography

The Heinz Awards biography

ISC Lifetime Achievement Award

Mark di Suvero and di Suvero family papers, 1934-2005, at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art

Socrates Sculpture Park website

Patients' Stories. Mark Di Suvero.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Di Suvero, Mark 1933 births Living people University of California, Santa Barbara alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni United States National Medal of Arts recipients Artists with disabilities American male sculptors 20th-century American sculptors 21st-century American sculptors 21st-century American male artists Artists from Shanghai Artists from San Francisco Sculptors from California Italian emigrants to the United States City College of San Francisco alumni People from Petaluma, California 20th-century American male artists