WORK OF THE WEEK: Beverly Pepper, Medea, 2019-2021
Beverly Pepper
Medea, 2019-2021
Corten Steel
366 x 384 x 190 cm
12ft x 12ft 7 x 6ft 3 in.
Base plate: 2 x 240 × 200 cm / ¾ x 94 ½ x 78 ¾ in.
Edition 2 of 4
“The abstract language of form that I have chosen has become a way to explore an interior life of feeling... I wish to make an object that has powerful presence, but is at the same time inwardly turned, seeming capable of intense self-absorption.” - Beverly Pepper
Beverly Pepper’s Medea, now sited in a new position in the landscape at Roche Court, provides immense presence and energy, sweeping upwards and engaging both the land and the sky. Demonstrating Pepper’s fluent command of her materials, Medea’s dynamic form is at once imposing, inviting and immersive.
Pepper’s pioneering Land Art, installations and sculpture are endowed with an uplifting essence that belie their physical size. Over the course of months, often years, spontaneous drawings become rigorously detailed sketches of potential work, followed by precise scale models that ensure fully realised sculptures do not lose the free-flowing energy of their initial designs. Each sculpture is individually fabricated – not cast – and so the resulting work retains a tangible vitality of workmanship that only enhances the material properties of the steel, with its rich and ever-changing patina.
Born in Brooklyn, USA, in 1922, Beverly Pepper initially trained as a painter with Fernand Léger in Paris before turning to sculpture in 1960. She exhibited for the first time as a sculptor in 1961, in New York and Rome at the Galleria Pogliani, with a critical presentation by Giulio Carlo Argan. Her contribution to sculpture in the twentieth century was significant, with major exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA (1991); Chatsworth, Derbyshire, UK (2008) and Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, USA (2018 & 2012). Her work can also be found in public installations across Asia, Europe and the USA, including the Beverly Pepper Sculpture Park, which opened in Todi, Italy, in 2018.
Medea will be included alongside 14 further monumental works by Beverly Pepper in Beverly Pepper on New York Ave, Washington DC, a major exhibition opening on May 1st, 2025, in Washington DC, USA. The exhibition will showcase the full range of Beverly Pepper’s art, including her large-scale environmental works, public theatres and parkscapes.