Late in 2012 I flew to Sicily to meet Arturo Di Modica, then 71 years old, to discuss acting as his first official art dealer. Looking through the airport crowds, it was impossible to miss the thick trademark beard of the man waiting to greet me. Like millions worldwide, I knew his iconic Charging Bull, but its creator was a mystery. Over time I came to realise that the sculpture was in fact an embodiment of Di Modica himself. Filled with strength and power, both leave you unsure in which direction they will charge next. And it is this unpredictability that characterised the way he premiered his masterpiece to the world.

At the dead of night on the 14th December 1989, Di Modica and a crew of friends arrived on Wall Street with the four-ton Charging Bull on the back of a flatbed truck. Having spent the last few nights monitoring the security patrols, he knew the guard would return in just four and half minutes. To his surprise, a gigantic Christmas tree had appeared since his last visit, right where he planned to set down all 16ft of bronze. Without a second to spare Di Modica announced, “Drop the bull under the tree – it’s my gift.”

Di Modica’s next big move came in 1970 - to New York City, capital of the world’s art market. Hitting the ground running, he quickly set up a studio on Grande Street. Monumental modernistic marbles soon began appearing on the sidewalk, in a prelude of things to come. When Hilton Kramer, the famous art critic, slammed down the phone on Di Modica’s invitation to his 1977 Battery Park exhibition, the artist’s Sicilian blood began to boil. Determined to make a point, he loaded eight monumental abstract marbles from the show onto a truck and turned up on Fifth Avenue. After dropping the works outside the Rockefeller Center, his driver made a speedy getaway, narrowly avoiding four police officers who came running, guns out. Confronted and unable to speak much English, Di Modica pushed a gun aside and handed over a flyer. The next day, his exploits covered the front page of the New York Post. A valuable lesson had been learnt with the attention acting as a catalyst to his career.

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Ten years later, on the 19th October 1987, Black Monday struck the US stock markets. By then, Di Modica had a following of important collectors and was working from a four-level SoHo studio he had constructed by hand. He felt indebted to America and, as hard times bit after the crash, a need to act welled up inside him. A lightning bolt moment sent him into the studio where he began the tireless work. Two years and $350,000 later, Charging Bull emerged. So when he arrived on Wall Street to find a Christmas tree had appeared, it was fate. Charging Bull was Di Modica’s gift to America, intended to inspire each person who came into contact with it, to carry on fighting with ‘strength and determination’ through the hard times for their dreams.

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