Knighted, Order to the Merit of the Italian Republic, (1982) Commendation from Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in recognition 20 years of painting in California, (1987) Marco Sassone, OMRI (born 1942, in Campi Bisenzio) is an American-Italian painter.

This work formed the exhibition "Home on the Streets" which opened in 1994, at the Museo ItaloAmericano in San Francisco, and traveled to Los Angeles and Florence, Italy.

A childhood encounter with a homeless man in Campi Bisenzio first inspired the artist's lifelong interest in marginalized people and places in society.

(Charles Speroni, Dean, College of Fine Arts, UCLA) Marco Sassone was born in Campi Bisenzio, a Tuscan village, in 1942.

Of his work then, the art critic for the Los Angeles Times, William Wilson, wrote: "Sassone is impressively gifted as a colorist and skilled in rendering reflections and color in light."

With prescience, Hoopes had observed: "Sassone’s art has evolved from within, and such an organic, psychological and spiritual process may take his work along new and unforeseen paths."

He began extensive - and personal - research on the homeless and painted a series of large canvasses and charcoal drawings portraying the life he observed on the streets.

In March 1994, his exhibition Home on the Streets opened at the Museo ItaloAmericano in San Francisco later traveling to Los Angeles and Florence, Italy.

Kenneth Baker, art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about his work: "There is true technical brilliance here…In the drawings, his technique seems to discover fresh descriptive possibilities each time out."

Paola Bortolotti, art critic for La Nazione, writes: "The persistent theme does not carry a denunciation of a social problem, but it is rather the pretext to pour forth onto canvas the urgency of the brush strokes."

In May, 2001, the Museo ItaloAmericano in San Francisco inaugurated the exhibition, Master and Pupil, works by Oskar Kokoschka, Silvio Loffredo, and Sassone.

Author Peter Selz, writing in the catalog about the artist's work, described the link between the three artists: "A canvas like Chinese Reds (1990) in scarlet color relates to the chromatic scheme of his teacher’s Angel of Death (1998), while alarming paintings like Marlboro Country (1990) with its human skulls spread in the foreground, or Coit Tower Night (1988) – a painting of deep blue water, a brown hill and a violent purple sky – all done with an agitated brush, elicit a fervent emotion, comparable to the sensations evoked by the canvases of Kokoschka himself."

Milly Mostardini wrote in a review for Il Tirreno: "From Kokoschka to Loffredo and Sassone: The lessons are passed on from master and pupil.

Sassone’s expressionism leads to visionary transformations, in an intense dance of chromatic impastos, with furious, explosive strokes of pigment."

Deirdre Kelly wrote in the Globe and Mail: "With gestural brush strokes and an expressionistic use of color, Mr. Sassone romanticizes such banal views as a Carlaw parking lot and the westbound Gardiner Expressway."

In 2010, he returned to San Francisco to attend the October 1st inauguration of his one-man show installed in the splendid space of the Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The Adnkronos news agency produced a video-interview titled Marco Sassone - Quando l'anima resta inchiodata alla tela.

In October, he traveled to Bartlesville, Oklahoma to attend the opening of his exhibition Architecture and Nature installed at the Price Tower Art Center, a museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 2016, the Bata Museum in Toronto, Canada opened the exhibition Marco Sassone: His Boots and Other Works accompanied by a catalogue written by Deirdre Kelly.

In 2017, Berenson Fine Art mounted the exhibition Marco Sassone: Viaticus, a body of work representing "a microcosm of collective memory, giving expression to historical allusions, as a literal and philosophical journey along tracks and converging furrows that visually draw the eye on a voyage."

Sassone began his career as a draftsman in Florence where he studied life drawing and the art of chiaroscuro with professor Ugo Maturo.

1994 he presented a series of charcoal portraits for his exhibition Home on the Streets at Museo Italo Americano, San Francisco reviewed by art critic Kenneth Baker who wrote: "There is true technical brilliance here...

He painted on location in Italy, Greece, England and departed for California in 1967 where he established his studio in Laguna Beach at the top of a 4-story home overlooking the Pacific.

In 1967, Sassone, along with Pietro Annigoni and Silvio Loffredo was invited to participate at the Lo Sprone Centro di Cultura for the exhibition Perchè non si Dimentichi, commemorating the flood of Florence.

In 2001 Sassone was a part of the exhibition Master and Pupil at the Museo-Italo Americano, San Francisco with Oskar Kokoschka ad Silvio Loffredo.

Comprehensive solo exhibitions of Sassone's work have been organized by the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach, California (1979); Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (1988); Italian Cultural Institute, San Francisco (1989); Buschlen-Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (1990); Museo Italo-Americano, San Francisco (1994); Pasquale Iannetti Gallery, San Francisco (1996); Cloisters of Santa Croce, Florence (1997); MB Modern, New York and Odon Wagner Gallery, Toronto (2000); Isetan Gallery, Tokyo (2001); Palazzo Ducale, Massa-Carrara, Italy (2002); Cloister of Sant'Agostino, Pietrasanta, Italy (2003); SCAPE, Corona del Mar, California (2007); National Shrine of S. Francis, San Francisco (2010); Palazzo dell'Informazione, Rome, Italy (2010); Price Tower Arts Center, Oklahoma (2012); Berenson Fine Art, Toronto (2012); San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, Texas (2014); Bata Museum, Toronto (2016); Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, California (2016).

- JANET DOMINIK, Sassone, Bernheim-Jeune, exhibition catalog, Paris, France (April 13 - May 4, 1988) "The persistent theme does not carry a denunciation of a social problem, but it is rather the pretext to pour forth onto canvas the urgency of the brush strokes…Here it is the water that becomes the turbulent element, troubled by vestiges and shadows resulting from distant echoes of Sassone’s teacher, Silvio Loffredo, who paints with similar, quick brush strokes, trailing onto the canvas a wake of vibrant color."

- FRANCIS MILL, NY Arts, New York, (May 2001) "A canvas like Chinese Reds (1990) in its scarlet color relates to the chromatic scheme of his teacher’s Angel of Death (1998), while alarming paintings like Marlboro Country (1990) with its human skulls spread in the foreground, or Coit Tower Night (1988) – a painting of deep blue water, a brown hill and a violent purple sky – all done with an agitated brush, elicit a fervent emotion, comparable to the sensations evoked by the canvases of Kokoschka himself."

They thread this way and that through foggy grey middle grounds and out into oblivion, the flecking and dabbing of Sassone’s brush reading now as the rusting, flaking and slow ruin that comes with abandonment."

- GARY MICHAEL DAULT, The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (April 12, 2008) "As products of Sassone’s hand, even such unsightly things as expressways and parking lots become magical, not only because they are cast in an ethereal, post-impressionistic glow, but also because the artist sees them as dynamic, muscular roots into the heart of a vibrant city."