Mark Lombardi (1951–2000) is an American draughtsman whose straight-faced, hand-drawn diagrams chart sociopolitical narratives of influence and contradiction, from the collapse of the Vatican bank to the Iran-Contra scandal. An art history graduate of Syracuse University, Lombardi first entered the art world as an abstract painter and owner of the Lombardi Gallery. Only 16 months after his first major gallery show, Lombardi was found dead in his Brooklyn loft, apparently the victim of suicide. A few weeks after September 11, 2001, an FBI agent called the Whitney Museum of American Art—to ask about a drawing by Mark Lombardi.
“He’s a sorcerer whose drawings are crypto-mystical talismans or visual exorcisms meant to immobilize enemies, tap secret knowledge, summon power, and expose demons.” —Jerry Saltz
![[+]](https://www.thegundgallery.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/lombardi.jpg){kind=link}
