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Pepper is the spice of sculpting life

The brilliant artist you've never heard of

July 14, 2014 11:15
Beverly Pepper in her studio

By Julia Weiner , Julia Weiner

3 min read

I was relieved to discover that another art critic had described 91-year-old sculptor Beverly Pepper as "the brilliant artist you've never heard of". Before our interview, I, too, was unfamiliar with her name, despite the fact that her monumental steel sculptures can be found all over the world, including two in Israel. However, there are none in the UK, and although she has been represented by Marlborough Fine Art for nearly 50 years, she is now exhibiting in the UK for the first time.

"I ask myself to this day why I have never before shown in England," Pepper says. "It was stupid because London has always been a great place to make art. Robert Hughes, the eminent writer, said I was not a careerist. And maybe that is why you have not heard of me."

A small, sprightly woman, dressed completely in black, Pepper walks with a stick. But she is still full of energy and committed to making sculpture. Neither a serious accident two years ago, nor the death in April of her husband, the author and journalist Curtis Bill Pepper, after 68 years of marriage has dampened her resolution. "I'm almost 92 and I don't have the same physical energy," she says. "However, I have found a way to outwit my disability. I draw and work in Styrofoam, then my assistants translate my ideas."

Pepper was born Beverly Stoll in 1922 in New York. "I came from a strange Jewish family," she says. "My mother's parents were very religious. My father's parents were against religion and were socialists. We had the most wonderful Passovers. My mother's family had the first night, where we had a very serious service but then enjoyed hiding the matzah and playing lots of games. The next day, my father's mother would have us over for candies, cakes and ice cream."