Mark di Suvero was born to Italian parents living in Shanghai, China. The family later moved to San Francisco, and di Suvero studied at San Francisco City College and the University of California at Santa Barbara and at Berkeley, where he graduated with a BA in philosophy in 1956. In 1957, he moved to New York City, where he nurtured a growing interest in sculpture and encountered Abstract Expressionism.

During his early years in New York, di Suvero assembled sculptures from discarded materials he found around construction sites. A near-fatal accident in 1960 led him to develop methods for employing heavy machinery in the assembly of his dynamic sculptures, which match the exhilaration and scale of Abstract Expressionist painting.

"Pre-Columbian" was first erected on the coast of Point Reyes, about twenty miles north of San Francisco, in 1965. Experimenting outdoors, free from the physical limitations of a gallery or studio, di Suvero made sculptures that soared skyward and stretched out in every direction. Composed of weathered timbers, wooden beams, a section of a tree trunk, a heavy chain, and a car tire, "Pre-Columbian" unites multiple, discrete pieces of debris as one totality. This delicate whole, an amalgam of destruction and creation, is harnessed by an iron support painted vibrant red, a color associated with energy and industry. While the title literally refers to the era prior to Christopher Columbus’s voyages of 1492, the phrase also suggests ancient archetypes or the universal passage of time. [Lauren Palmor, de Young 125]