For more than fifty years, Spanierman Gallery cultivated a reputation as one of the country’s preeminent galleries dedicated to American Art. Founded by Ira Spanierman in 1961, the gallery initially offered a wide selection of material, including silver, arms and armor, Old Master, European and American art. Over time, Spanierman chose to focus exclusively on American art, a move that would establish the gallery as a tour-de-force in the field. Well-known for his outstanding ‘eye’ and dedication to connoisseurship, Spanierman was trusted by institutions and private collectors alike. The gallery was known to have sold to hundreds of museums across the United States and abroad while fostering the development of some of the country’s most prestigious private collections.
In addition to its reputation as a dealer, Spanierman Gallery was esteemed in the industry for its dedication and support of art scholarship. As a young man starting off in the business, Ira Spanierman recalled researching and identifying paintings through tedious research at the Frick Art Reference Library. These hours of study left an indelible mark on Spanierman who would go on to publish catalogue raisonnés for artists such as Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, Willard Metcalf, and co-sponsor the catalogue on the work of Winslow Homer.
When Spanierman Gallery closed in 2014 an impressive inventory remained. We are pleased to be offering a selection of these works in our upcoming auctions. Paintings and sculpture by artists such as John Haberle, Childe Hassam, Walter Schofield, Ibram Lassaw, Theodoros Stamos, George Segal and Patrick Procter among others, will be offered over two days. The sales also features work from a few of the estates acquired by the gallery, such as: Burgoyne Diller, Gershon Benjamin, Hayley Lever, Charles Warren Eaton, Sears Gallagher and Abraham Bogdanove.
Beverly Pepper 1922–2020
Beverly Pepper was a groundbreaking American sculptor known for her monumental works in steel, iron, and stone, and for her pioneering contributions to site-specific and land art. Over a career spanning more than six decades, Pepper forged a singular path in the male-dominated field of large-scale sculpture, becoming one of the first artists to regularly integrate industrial materials and techniques with sculptural forms that echoed both the ancient and the modern.
Born Beverly Stoll in Brooklyn, New York, she studied advertising design at Pratt Institute before turning to painting. She later studied in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and worked briefly as a commercial art director. After traveling in Europe and North Africa, she settled in Italy in the early 1950s with her husband, writer Curtis Bill Pepper. It was during this period that she transitioned from painting to sculpture—a shift inspired by her exposure to ancient artifacts and architectural ruins in Cambodia.
Pepper’s early sculptural works were figurative and made of carved wood, but by the 1960s, she had begun working in welded steel and exploring abstraction. She gained international recognition after participating in the landmark 1962 Sculture nella città exhibition in Spoleto, Italy, where she exhibited alongside artists such as Alexander Calder and Lynn Chadwick. Her work soon evolved into a unique blend of Minimalist aesthetics and expressive form, characterized by crisp geometry, surface modulation, and a keen sensitivity to landscape.
Pepper often created works that were intended to remain permanently integrated with their environment. Her earthbound forms—part sculpture, part land art—invite viewers to move around and within them, blurring the lines between object, architecture, and nature. Notable commissions include Amphisculpture in L'Aquila, Palingenesis in Zurich, and the Denver Monoliths.
Pepper’s work is held in major museum collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Centre Pompidou. She received numerous awards and honors over her lifetime, including Italy’s Order of Merit and the International Sculpture Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and remains a towering figure in the history of modern sculpture.
