Rago Auctions

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.