When his father died in California in 1973, Mark di Suvero was living on a boat moored alongside a waterfront shipyard in Chalone-sur-Saône, France, in voluntary exile from the United States to protest of the American involvement in the Vietnam War. Because of di Suvero’s political commitments, he did not return to the United States after his father’s death, and instead created Mon Père, Mon Père (which translates from French as “My Father, My Father”) in the shipyard as a lament for his father. When strong winds blow, the unpainted steel sculpture seems to bow its head slowly. The date of this work, 1973-75, points to the fact that di Suvero altered it slightly during its first public display in 1975, at the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris.