Mark di Suvero

American sculptor (born 1933)

Marco Polo di Suvero (born September 18, 1933), He was one of four children, the eldest being Victor di Suvero. 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. 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 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, 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 since 2009. In 1975, his sculptures were exhibited in the Tuileries Garden in Paris, He later returned to the United States and opened a studio in Petaluma, California in 1975.

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 and Franz Kline. 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."