Alex Katz admired a Mark di Suvero sculpture and gave it to the Brooklyn Museum. It now has pride of place in the museum’s 200th anniversary celebration.
Consider two artists, now both in their 90s and both still working, who do not know each other personally despite coming up in the New York art scene around the same time.
One of them, Alex Katz, became the painter of some of the most recognizable portraits of our age, the other, Mark di Suvero, a welder of huge steel sculptures that are ubiquitous wherever outdoor art is found.
This is not a buddy comedy setup, but rather the philanthropic back story behind the recent permanent installation of a nearly 15-foot-tall abstract sculpture by di Suvero, "Sooner or Later" (2022), on the plaza in front of the Brooklyn Museum.
The work is a gift to the museum from the Alex Katz Foundation, picked out by the painter himself, to honor the museum's 200th anniversary.
