Mark di Suvero

Mark di Suvero (born 1933, Shanghai) is one of the most important American sculptors of the modern era. His Italian-American family immigrated to San Francisco in 1941 fleeing fascism. He earned a philosophy degree from UC Berkeley in 1957 and moved to New York to sculpt, incorporating salvaged materials from demolition sites. In the mid-1960s he began using cranes — "the way a painter uses a brush" — to create monumental steel I-beam sculptures. A 2010 National Medal of Arts recipient, di Suvero's works stand in public spaces worldwide.