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Vincent Pepi Biography:
Biographical information for Vincent Pepi can be found below. The artist may choose what information to display. Sometimes the artist chooses not to display personal information to the general public.
Age
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84
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| Gender |
Male
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| Status |
Married
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| Children |
2
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| Religion |
none |
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| Education |
Post Graduate Degree |
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| Hobbies / Interests |
Hobbies: NONE
Interests: Psychology. Sociology
Music/ classical and jazz
Art and Architecture. |
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| Favorite Artistic Medium |
Watercolor
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| Favorite Arthistory Movement |
Surrealism - (1924 - 1955)
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| Favorite Visual Artist |
Mark Tobey/Arshile Gorky/
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| Favorite Work of Art |
Snoopy
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| Biggest Artistic Inspiration |
To be Alive |
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| Why Did You Become An Artist |
I did not become an artist, rather I was born an
artist. And knew I was an artist from my parents and
all of my family surrounding me. I was given plenty of
encouragement from family and friends. My junior
high school teacher sent me to Music and Art high
school where I entered and graduated from in 1943. |
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| Your Personal Biography |
Vincent Pepi Biography
Born Boston MA, 1926
Family moves to New York City, 1935
Passes exams to enter Music and Arts High School. 1940
Graduates from Music and Art High School, 1943
Starts position with magazine Illustration Studio, June, 1943
Develops technique and confidence as a professional artist,
Leaves Rahl Studios to Volunteer to serve in U.S. Navy - May 1944
Paints a mural at Sampson Naval Training Base, Sampson, NY 1944
Assigned to duty on destroyer escort 221 in Atlantic and Mediterranean -1944
Paints North African terrain and inhabitants at Oran and Mers el Kibar, 1944-45
Discharged from Navy in July, 1946
Passes exams and enters Cooper Union, New York City in fine arts program, 1947
Travels to Mexico to study fine art. Remains in Mexico City for four months 1948
Studies the murals of Diego Rivera, Mexico City
Studies the paintings of Orozco and Siquerios, Mexico City
Enrolls in evening fine arts program at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY 1947-48
July 1949 departs for Rome to continue formal studies
Enrolls in Meschini Institute to study privately with Prof. Beppe Guzzi, Rome, Italy, 1949
Allows subconscious to emerge in experimental work, Rome, Italy 1950
Attends Venice Biennale in the company of Pericle Fazzini. Meets Painter Giorgio Morandi. 1950
Works on sculpture projects as assistant to Fazzini, Rome and Milan 1950 and 1951
Meets surrealist painter Roberto Matta who has an influence on his works, Rome, 1950
Meets painter Alberto Burri, with whom he exchanges ideas about surface crust in work. 1950
Meets painter Piero D'Orazio who introduces him to Giacomo Balla and invites him to exhibit 1951
July, 1951, Pepi returns to New York City and opens his own studio.
Meets painters Kline, Marca-Relli and deKooning, among others, New York, 1951
Attends classes at Hans Hofmann School, New York City, 1951
Experiments with automatism and pure abstraction, from 1951 to 1953
Invited by Nick Carone to exhibit at Stable Gallery/ Second Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, 1953
Continues experimenting with pure abstract imagery and form, 1954-60
Exhibits as member of March Gallery on Tenth Street, NY, NY 1955-62
Accepts position as art director of New York University. Designs all printed materials for Office of Publications and Printing.
Also designs books for NYU Press, 1953-55
Continues his experiments with his own style of painting and occasionally visits 'The Club'. Paintings become more aggressive ( more gestural).
Traveis frequently to Italy during years 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1962.
Vacations in Taormina, Sicily. Also Visits Pompei,Paestum, Florence, Assisi and Rome.Visits the Biennale in Venice, The Prado Museum in Madrid and friends in Rome. Continues experiments in Pure Abstract Painting, 1962-1979
Has one man show at Hofstra
University, Faculty Club, 1979
Appointed as gallery director of Hofstra University,Faculty Club Gallery to provide some recognition to talented artists, 1979-84
Joins Allene Lapides Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1989
Exhibits under banner: ' 'Vanguards of the Fifties, Vincent Pepi, Byron Browne' , 1990
Joins Sid Deutsch Gallery, 1990
One-man show at Sid Deutsch Gallery, 1992
One-man show at Stony Brook, State University Art Gallery, 1996
Exhibits at Snyder Gallery group show, 'Abstract Expressionism, Expanding the Canon,' 2001
Exhibits Snyder Gallery summer group show, '500 Works on Paper,' 2003
Removes his works from Snyder Gallery, August 2003
Exhibits for first time Internationally at Florence Biennale, December 2005
Exhibits work in USA,Florence Biennale
September, 26, 2010
Invited to exhibit in Florence Biennale
2011 |
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| Artist Statement |
I am pleased to invite all those interested in art as a dynamic force, to view my
portfolio.
It is no coincidence that in the study and history of man, ART plays the dominant role. Painting need not be literal to tell a story. Here are some words from an art historian of distinction, known for his knowledge of Abstract Expressionism.
"Amid the number of participants of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1940's and 1950's, Vincent Pepi produced a significant body of serious, distinctive and visionary work.
"As ongoing research enriches the already remarkable story of mid-20th-century painterly abstraction in America, Vincent Pepi's vital, vibrant oeuvre of small-scale gestures and spatial inventiveness offers a timely reminder that much remains to be appreciated anew.
"It is Pepi's exploration of such semi-illusionistic abstract phenomena, at times evoking a nearly palpable though fluctuant sense of space, that comprises an intriguing personal deviation from the American Abstract Expressionist norm, so often given to the pursuit of the flatness of form and color. Pepi understood that the shifting levels of cubist space, no matter how slight, held formal potential for extension into more emphatically abstract imagery of gestural abstraction."
Excerpts from 1992 exhibit catalogue essay;
"Space and Gesture: The paintings of Vincent Pepi"
by Jeffrey Wechsler, Assistant Director, Zimmerli Art Museum,
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Here is another comment on Pepi by Harry Rand;
Vincent Pepi like other "first generation Abstract Expressionists
never lost his grounding in manual virtuosity and drew incessantly
from still lives and nudes, and, as in other first generation Abstract Expressionists, the residue of this surety of line and form
elevates his art,as its absence can be felt as a hollowness in subsequent abstract art. In a calligrific work such as (<525-f),1950,
the sense of the brush stroke's conviction and certitude would be
lacking in American art for the next two generations as artists groped for any tenet to rebut camp's faithlessness. Then Pepi used
his enamel-loaded brush with the assurance of a writer conscripting
letters or a draftsman outlining an apple. Untethered from hard-won
form, Pepi's color roamed free chromatically. If his work recalls Gorky and deKooning, wwith flourishes of others, Pepi is very much
an individual, with a consistency which courses through all his
works, right into (Eclipse/Kiss,<657),1981, a richly painted oil, redolent of certain lyrical deKoonings of thirty years earlier without
in any way emulating him.
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