Mother Peace, one of Mark di Suvero’s most overtly political works, includes a torch-cut peace sign in its lower horizontal beam; the entire sculpture also takes the form of a three-dimensional peace sign. It is the last major work that di Suvero completed before leaving the United States for a four-year stay in Europe in 1971, in protest of US involvement in the Vietnam War. Di Suvero created Mother Peace without the aid of assistants in a parking lot in Pasadena, California, over the course of nine months; he arranged its large I-beams with a crane. The sculpture weighs approximately six tons, but seems to defy its own great mass: its upper elements are suspended by thick cables and sway in response to gusts of wind.