ARTURO DI MODICA'S CHARGING BULL

by Leonardo Tourne September 2, 2026

The story behind Wall Street’s Charging Bull — and the rare 1987 prototype that preceded it

Standing at Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan, Arturo Di Modica’s Charging Bull has become one of New York’s most recognizable public sculptures, attracting millions of visitors each year. To the world, the 16-foot-long, 7,100-pound bronze has come to symbolize the power and prosperity of American capitalism. Yet, for all its global fame, few who line up to touch the Charging Bull’s gleaming horns know the true history behind its creation. The monument was never commissioned, nor was it funded by Wall Street. It was born out of a rogue, midnight act, the artist’s unsanctioned gift to the American people. It is a sculpture intended not simply to represent financial strength, but to embody resilience, optimism, and the conviction that even after a devastating setback, people could create their own future.

Black Monday and the Idea of a Bull

On October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 22 percent in a single trading session — the largest one-day percentage decline in the index's history.

"It was Black Monday. The crash of '87. The big crash," he later told the critic Anthony Haden-Guest. Di Modica had arrived in New York from Sicily in the early 1970s. He had come to feel that America had given him an opportunity, and that New York in particular — the city where he had built his career — deserved something from him in return. The crash gave him an impetus to make it.

The bull came directly from the vocabulary of the markets. "The bear has to go down, the bull has to go up," he told Haden-Guest. "I decided that I must do the bull" (Anthony Haden-Guest).

He was explicit that the sculpture was meant to say more than that. "My point was to show people that if you want to do something in a moment things are very bad, you can do it," he said. "You can do it by yourself. My point was that you must be strong."

It was a statement about strength and self-reliance in a moment of collective anxiety, but also one of optimism and possibility. Di Modica later described the work as something he made "for the American people, for the young people, for the future, for a better America." In his telling, the sculpture was less a comment on Wall Street than an encouragement to people facing difficult circumstances: if you wanted to change something, you could act on your own and help create a better future.

The Making of an Uncommissioned Monument

Di Modica spent roughly two years developing the sculpture in his SoHo studio before it was cast in bronze at the Bedi-Makky Art Foundry in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (NYC Parks). He financed the project himself, spending an estimated $350,000 on its production (AFP via IBTimes).

"I wasn't thinking about getting back money," he said later. "If I was waiting for money from other people, it would never have happened."

There was no client or commission behind the work, and Di Modica did not seek permission from the city or the New York Stock Exchange before installing the sculpture on Broad Street.

A Christmas Gift to New York

By December 1989 the sculpture was finished, and Di Modica had decided to give it to New York as a Christmas gift to the American people. He chose a site outside the New York Stock Exchange. He had spent nights watching the Exchange's security patrols and calculated he would have only a few minutes to unload the sculpture and set it in place.

Di Modica and a group of friends drove the sculpture downtown on a flatbed truck overnight on December 14-15, 1989 (NYC Parks). When they arrived, they found the spot they'd chosen occupied by a large Christmas tree the Exchange had put up for the holidays. There wasn't time to find another location. "It's my gift," Di Modica told his companions, and they placed the bull beneath the tree.

By morning, crowds had gathered around the 7,100-pound bronze bull. Di Modica was on site, greeting the crowds and handing out flyers he'd printed to explain what the work was and why he'd made it.

The reaction on the street was enthusiastic, but the reaction from the New York Stock Exchange was not. Di Modica had not obtained permission to place the sculpture there, and within a day the bull was removed and placed in storage in Queens (Lower Manhattan Historical Association).

Public Outcry, and the Return of the Bull

The removal of the Charging Bull only served to reveal how much the city had already embraced the work. Its disappearance generated public pushback, including front-page coverage in the New York Post, and made clear that the enthusiasm from that first morning reflected a deeper public interest in the Charging Bull. Arthur Piccolo of the Bowling Green Association proposed a compromise: a new site two blocks from Wall Street, at the north end of Bowling Green. He brought the idea to Henry Stern, then Commissioner of the NYC Parks Department, and to Mayor Ed Koch's office. Di Modica ultimately paid the city's removal and storage fees to reclaim the sculpture (Italian Tribune).

On December 20, 1989, Charging Bull was installed at Bowling Green on a temporary permit. The city's Art Commission had objected that a sculpture of this kind could not simply be placed on public land without its approval (New York Almanack). The bull has remained there ever since.

Asked later to sum up why he had made the Charging Bull, Di Modica put it simply: "I did this work for love."

The Bull Before Wall Street: The 1987 Edition

The monumental bronze at Bowling Green is the version of Charging Bull most people know. But the sculpture’s story began several years earlier, in a smaller form.

While developing the larger work, Di Modica produced a limited first edition of the bull in polished stainless steel, dated 1987—the same year as the market crash that inspired the project. Compact, measuring 27 x 15.75 x 13.78 inches, this rare 1987 prototype already possesses the powerful, forward-driving form that would become one of the most recognizable images in New York.

According to the current owner's recollection of conversations with Di Modica, sales from the early edition helped finance the production of the monumental bronze at Bowling Green. In that sense, the 1987 edition is not simply an early version of Charging Bull but forms part of the story of how the iconic work itself came into being.

This rare lineage is echoed by art historian Guicciardo Sassoli de’ Bianchi, who notes that the "Charging Bull that is offered here has museum importance precisely because it is the first version, signed and dated 1987, that was bought directly from the artist by the current owner when he lived in N.Y. and they were friends."

For collectors, the sculpture offers a unique opportunity to own a piece of history, directly connected to the origins of one of New York’s most famous public monuments — created before Charging Bull emerged as an international symbol of strength, confidence, and optimism.

A Sculptor on His Own Terms

Arturo Di Modica (1941–2021) was born in Vittoria, Sicily, and moved to Florence as a teenager, where he spent the 1960s developing an intensely independent practice in sculpture and painting. Unable to afford established foundries, he built his own and taught himself to cast bronze, eventually exhibiting his work in galleries and cultural institutions across Italy, including a major solo exhibition at Florence’s Villa Medici in 1968 (Arturo Di Modica Foundation). While working in the marble studios of Carrara, he met Henry Moore, who called him “the young Michelangelo,” a remark that became emblematic of the ambition and physicality of Di Modica’s sculpture (Arturo Di Modica Foundation).

After moving to New York in 1970, Di Modica quickly developed a reputation for taking his work directly into public space. In 1977, after an exhibition of eight monumental marble sculptures in Battery Park attracted little attention, he transported the roughly 60 tons of marble to Rockefeller Center and unloaded the sculptures across Fifth Avenue; police arrived with guns drawn, Mayor Abraham Beame came to the scene, and Di Modica was ultimately fined $25 and allowed to leave the works temporarily on view. The stunt made the front page of the New York Post, and all eight sculptures were subsequently sold (Arturo Di Modica Foundation).

Over the following decades, Di Modica’s monumental sculpture was presented in museums, cultural institutions and major public settings in the United States and internationally. His exhibitions and commissions included presentations at the Art Center of New Jersey, Lincoln Center, Cipriani Grand Central and the Shanghai World Expo, while his sculptures entered private and institutional collections in the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. His later work included monumental series such as Love in Space and Wild Horses, as well as public commissions and installations in New York, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, extending a career devoted to the possibilities of sculpture on a monumental scale (Arturo Di Modica Foundation).

ARTURO DI MODICA
Charging Bull, 1987

For more information on the 1987 first edition of Arturo Di Modica's Charging Bull, please contact Tourné at info@tournegallery.com.