Mark di Suvero
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Marco Polo di Suvero (born September 18, 1933), 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 The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
recipient.


Early life and education

Di Suvero was born in Shanghai, China, to Matilde Millo di Suvero and Vittorio di Suvero (later known as Victor E.), both Italians of Sephardic Jewish descent. He was one of four children, the eldest being
Victor di Suvero Victor di Suvero (1927–2021) was an Poetry of the United States, American poet, Investment management, investment manager and entrepreneur. He is associated with the poetry movement referred to as the Berkeley Renaissance. He is the brother ...
. His father was a U.S. Navy attaché for the Italian government, and the family lived in Shanghai until his father was relocated to Tientsin shortly after the birth of the family's last son in 1936. With the outbreak of World War II, di Suvero immigrated to San Francisco with his family in February 1941 aboard the S.S. ''President Cleveland''. Di Suvero attended City College of San Francisco from 1953 to 1954, and then the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1954 to 1955. He began creating sculptures while at the University of California, Santa Barbara after learning that he was unable to make an original contribution as part of his philosophy major. He transferred to the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with a B.A. in philosophy in 1957.


Career

After graduating from college, di Suvero moved to New York City in 1957 to begin a career as a sculptor. He worked part-time in construction and began to incorporate wood and metal from demolition sites into his work. Di Suvero gained recognition among art critics with his first solo exhibit at the Green Gallery in Manhattan in the fall of 1960. The editor of '' Arts Magazine'' 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
On March 26, 1960, while working at a construction site, he was involved in a near-fatal elevator accident, resulting in a broken back and severe spinal injuries. Treating physicians initially believed he would be unable to walk again. While in rehabilitation, however, he learned to work with an arc welder, which he used in later pieces. His recovery took four years. By 1965, he was able to walk without assistance. He is one of the 16 artists featured in '' Chronicles of Courage: Very Special Artists'', a book that featured the accident and the subsequent effect it had on 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 So ...
,
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, and others. The gallery closed in July 1967. Di Suvero protested the Vietnam War, and was arrested twice. He left the United States in 1971. During his four-year self-exile, he exhibited his works in the Netherlands and Germany, taught at the Università Internazionale dell'Arte, and lived in
Chalon-sur-Saône Chalon-sur-Saône (, literally ''Chalon on Saône'') is a city in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. It is the largest city in the department; h ...
, France 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 t ...
since 2009. In 1975, his sculptures were exhibited in the Tuileries Garden 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 in 1975. While the Petaluma studio is still active, di Suvero moved to New York City and opened a studio there. In 1976, the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan 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. In January 2024, the work was permanently installed adjacent to David Chipperfield's East Building for the Saint Louis Art Museum. He founded the Athena Foundation in 1977 and Socrates Sculpture Park 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 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 lives in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City with his second wife, Kate D. Levin, who he married in 1993, and their daughter. Levin, a former
City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...
teacher, served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs from 2002 to 2013, and has worked in the Ed Koch and
Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...
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 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 ...
movement but directly evokes the spirit of the Russian post-revolution constructivism. 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 in 2000 * ''
Bunyon's Chess ''Bunyon's Chess'' is an outdoor 1965 sculpture by Mark di Suvero, installed at Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, Washington. The stainless steel and wood piece is tall. Conservation work on ''Bunyon's Chess'' was completed by the Seattle Art M ...
'' (1965) at Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle * '' Poland'' (1966) at Lynden Sculpture Garden in Milwaukee * '' Are Years What? (for Marianne Moore)'' (1967) at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. * '' Snowplow'' (1968) at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in
Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
* ''Victor's Lament'' (1969-1970) * ''
The Lovers ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' (1971-1973) at Lynden Sculpture Garden in Milwaukee * ''For Handel'' (1975), Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington * '' Inner Search'' (1980) in Minneapolis * ''
The Calling ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' (1981-1982) at O'Donnell Park in Milwaukee *''
Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho * Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah * Goshute: western Utah, easter ...
'' (1982), public art sculpture in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles * '' Iroquois'' (1983) on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia * Old Glory (1986) * '' Aurora'' (1992-1993), purchased by the
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
in Washington, D.C. from Gagosian Gallery in 1996 * ''E=MC 2'' (1992-1993), moved from France to the Storm King Art Center in upstate New York in 2019, his largest piece so far. * ''Galileo'' (1996), acquired by the Daimler Art Collection in 1998 * '' Joie de Vivre'' (1998) in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan * ''Pax Jerusalemme'' (1998-1999) at the
Legion of Honor The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
in San Francisco * '' The Sieve of Eratosthenes'' (1999) at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in Stanford, California *'' Declaration'' (2001), a public art sculpture in Venice Beach in Los Angeles *'' Orion'' (2006) at the University of Michigan Museum of Art at the University of Michigan in
Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...
* ''
Clock Knot ''Clock Knot'' is an outdoor painted steel sculpture by Mark di Suvero, installed on the University of Texas at Austin campus in Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and large ...
'' (2007) on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas * ''Paintbrush'' (2009) on the campus of the
Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...
in Brooklyn 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 Barbara Ellen Rose (June 11, 1936December 25, 2020) was an American art historian, art critic, curator and college professor. Rose's criticism focused on 20th-century American art, particularly minimalism and abstract expressionism, as well as S ...
, and it featured music composed by
Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...
. The film was released as a DVD in 2012. In May 2013, some of his most famous sculptures were exhibited in
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 ...
in 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 William Stanley Rubin (August 11, 1927January 22, 2006) was an American art scholar, a distinguished curator, critic, collector, art historian and teacher of modern art. From 1968 to 1988, Rubin was a curator at The Museum of Modern Art located ...
argued he merely vulgarized the style of
abstract expressionism 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 ...
set forth by Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. When ''Pax Jerusalemme'' was installed in a prominent spot in front of the
Legion of Honor The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
in 2000, Kenneth Baker in the '' San Francisco Chronicle'' dismissed it as "mediocre." But remarking on the installation of the artist's colossal ''E=MC 2'' at the Storm King Art Center, 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, which came with a $250,000 prize. *2010: **Medal of the Archives of American Art by the Smithsonian Institution **Winner of the
National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
, presented on March 2, 2011, by President Barack Obama. *2013: American Academy of Arts and Letters
Gold Medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...


See also

*
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 ...
*
John Raymond Henry John Raymond Henry (August 11, 1943 – November 1, 2022) was an American sculptor. Henry's sculpture has been described as huge welded steel drawings.Abstract expressionism 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 ...


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 American 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