Wall Street sculptor Arturo Di Modica dies at 80

ROME – The artist who sculpted ‘Charging Bull’, the bronze statue of New York that has become an iconic symbol of Wall Street, has died in his hometown in Sicily at the age of 80.

Arturo Di Modica died at his home in Vittoria on Friday evening, the city said in a statement on Saturday. Di Modica had been ill for some time, he said.

The sculptor lived in New York for more than 40 years in New York. He arrived in 1973 and opened an art studio in the city’s SoHo district. Using a truck and a crane, Di Modica installed the bronze bull sculpture in New York’s financial district without permission on the night of December 16, 1989.

The artist reportedly spent $ 350,000 of his money to create the 3.5-ton bronze beast that came to symbolize the resilience of the US economy after a 1987 stock market crash.

“It was a time of crisis. The New York Stock Exchange lost more than 20% overnight, and so many people were plunged into the darkest depression, ”said Di Modica, quoted by the Roman daily La Repubblica, in an interview earlier this month. .

He said he conceived the sculpture of the bull as “a joke, a provocation. Instead, it became a cursed and serious thing, ”destined to be one of New York’s most visited landmarks.

In the interview with La Repubblica, Di Modica detailed how he, about 40 friends, a crane and a truck carried out a lightning-fast operation to plant the statue near Bowling Green Park, a short walk from the headquarters of the New York Stock Exchange, without official authorization.

“Five minutes. The operations shouldn’t have lasted any longer. Otherwise, we’d be risking a lot,” he recalls. “After a few reconnaissance trips, I discovered that at night, the police were doing their rounds on Wall Street every day. every 7 to 8 minutes.

When the sculptor and his friends arrived at the location he had chosen, they were surprised to find that a Christmas tree had been erected there. They put down the bronze bull anyway and, as the artist says, uncorked a bottle of champagne.

Di Modica left Vittoria, Sicily, at 19 for Florence, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts.

At the time of his death he was working on prototypes for a twin horse sculpture he was planning to make for the Sicilian city. It was envisioned as a 132-foot-high structure to be erected on the banks of a river.

The city declared Monday, when Di Modica’s funeral will be held at St. John the Baptist Church in Vittoria, as the official day of mourning.