Beverly Pepper

(American, born 1922, died 2020)

Artist Beverly Pepper (1922-2020) was known internationally for her sculptures and installations for outdoor and public spaces. Metal was her main material and she was the first artist to use Corten steel which weathers into an attractive rusty-looking finish. Many of her metal sculptures are built around the existing landscape. In her own words, "I wish to make an object that has powerful presence, but is at the same time inwardly turned, seeming capable of intense self-absorption."

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Pepper studied advertising design and philosophy at the Pratt institute in Brooklyn. She continued to study art painting and art in France and Italy. In 1960 she travelled to Cambodia and visited the Angkor Wat temples. She later said, "I walked into Angkor Wat a painter and I left a sculptor."