Costantino Nivola was born in Orani (Nuoro) in 1911. At the age of twenty, he moved to Monza to study at the ISIA (Superior Institute of Art) obtaining a Master of Arts diploma and wed Ruth Guggenheim in 1938.

Nivola worked as art director for Olivetti, in Milan and then moved to Paris where he met Giorgio de Chirico. In 1939 he left Europe and moved to the US to save his Jewish wife from racial persecution. He worked as art director for the architectural journal Interior and Industrial Design (later Progressive Architecture) and for the magazine You.

In 1944 he displayed his paintings and sculptures for the first time in an exhibition at the Wakefield Gallery in New York. One year later, he meets Le Corbusier, who became a very close friend. In 1950 his artworks were exhibited at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York. He also exhibited at Quadriennale in Rome, Triennale in Milan, Stable Gallery in New York and Signa Gallery in East Hampton, NY.

In 1956 he was awarded the American Institute of Graphics Excellence Certificate and then received the silver medal of merit for sculpture by the Architectural League of New York. He became honorary member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, The Hague, Holland. Costantino Nivola died on May 5, 1988.