John Saccaro was born in San Francisco on September 2, 1913, to Venetian parents. He began his artistic career working for the Federal Arts Project in the Murals Section at Treasure Island in the 1930’s. In 1939, at the age of 25, he was given a solo show at the San Francsico Museum of Moder Art, and in 1954, he graduated from the California School of Fine Arts (not the San Francisco Art Institute). John Saccaro played a major role in the San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism whose artists included such luminaries as Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, Elmer Bischoff, John Grillo, and Richard Diebenkorn among many others. The post war optimistic environment coupled with the revolutionary culture of the region inspired Saccaro to develop a new language of painting that surpassed literalism As Saccaro once said:
For me, this act of love has found its deepest expression in the always painful struggle to provide those delicate, mysterious and powerful sensations of color-relationship which in their rareness, so, when they appear, impart splendor, life, and significance to the picture.