Beverley Pepper Sold at Auction Prices

Painter, Sculptor, b. 1922 - d. 2020

Beverly Pepper (née Stoll; December 20, 1922 – February 5, 2020) was an American sculptor known for her monumental works, site specific and land art. She remained independent from any particular art movement. She lived in Italy, primarily in Todi, since the 1950s. Pepper was born Beverly Stoll on December 20, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York City. Her parents were Jewish immigrants, Beatrice (Hornstein) and Irwin Stoll.[2] She grew up with a father who was a furrier, and sold carpet and linoleum, and a mother who was a volunteer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). "It was an interesting household," she said in an interview. "You see, I wasn’t brought up thinking I had to be a 'feminine’ woman.' Her mother and grandmother had strong personalities, which convinced her she could make her own life far from Brooklyn. "There was nothing I ever thought would limit me because my mother and grandmother were very strong women. I didn’t know that’s not how women acted!"

At sixteen, she entered the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, to study advertising design, photography, and industrial design. She then embarked on a career as a commercial art director. She studied at the Art Students League of New York and attended night classes at Brooklyn College, including art theory with György Kepes, who introduced her to the work of László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray. It was at this time, in her mid 20s, that she met the environmental artist Frederick Kiesler. Drawn to post-war Europe in 1949, she studied painting in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. There she attended classes with cubist painter André Lhote, and with Fernand Léger at his atelier. She also visited the studios of Ossip Zadkine and Brâncu?i.