Artist: Vincent Pepi (1926 - )
Nationality: American
Movement: abstract expressionism
Media: painting
Influences:

Biography:
Vincent Pepi studied at the High School of Music and Art, Cooper Union and Pratt Institute. These studies combined with his travels to Africa and Mexico, covinced him of the over- whelming importance of Europe for the development of American art. In 1949 Pepi went directly to the source-Rome- at the same time that the Abstract Expressioniat movement began at home. Three years later, in 1951, Pepi joined with many of the innovators of Action Painting in New York City. Upon his return to the United States, the artist studied briefly with Hans Hofmann, painting works parallel with Pollock, DeKooning, Kline, Marcarelli and others.Like so many others, he felt Surrealism's impact, adapting automatic techniques and transforming them into his own kind of gesture painting. Along with other first generation Abstract Expressionists, he showed his work at the Stable Gallery in 1953 and at the March Gallery on Tenth Street, from 1955 till its closing in 1960. Pepi separated himself from other artists of his time, since he felt uncomfortable with the New York /Art Scene/, and was never certain where he fit in. ( though its clear from today's vantage point that he fit right in the center.} He attended the /Club/ from time to time, but preferred his own studio and a more solitary existence. A graphics business which he created permitted him to live and paint, freeing him from the necessity of regularly exhibiting his work. Pepi's art certainly posseses affinities with other New York School Action Painters, but retains its own uniqueness. His choice to live in Italy from 1949-51, during a crucial time in the formation of the New York School , as well as his preference for painting in a consistently smaller format, may have obscured the recognition and fame that otherwise might have been his. The artist's acknowledged sources range from old masters to the Futurists (especially Boccioni and Balla) : from Klee and Kandinsky to Matta, Gorky and Pepi's contemporaries. His academically trained teacher in Italy, Beppe Guzzi, helped him to incoroporate rigorous discipline into his painting, as well as introducing him to a number of important Italian painters and sculptors. Like Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists he admires, Pepi has always loved music, particularly jazz, going as far as learning to play the tenor saxaphone. Color and music appear parallel to him: the artist/ musician improvises with both. And so it follows that Pepi's own automatic painting and line poems/ are reminiscent of works by Paul Klee, with the latter's powerful equations of color, line and music. Pepi defines himself as an academic artist, but one who felt he had to take that /main highway between Cezanne and Kandinsky/. His paintings do indeed, reveal a Cezanne-like underpining of abstract structure, while adopting the free improvisatory phase of Kandinsky at the same time. It is the revelation of the unconscious that Pepi seeks in his work. He wants his work to be spontaneous and uncontrived. Pepi loves Gorky's work. Like Gorky, he is pleased when metamorphosis in art occurs and a leaf turns into a bird, which then becomes part of a face. While he does not set about planning for or searching for images, it is okay with him when they occur. When I met Pepi, he had just heard Bela Bartok's Piano Concerto, composed in 1926, the year of his own birth. It /knocked him out/ he told me, and it is clear why. The classical, yet abstract, sometimes tonal and sometimes atonal music of Bartok still sounds modern to us today. The same can be said for the paintings of Vincent Pepi. Greta Berman, Author, Art Historian, Julliard School of Music,New York

Artworks in Museum Collections: (40)
Click the artwork titles below to see actual examples of artwork or works of art relevant to works by Vincent Pepi.

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Alex Katz - Ada and Vincent in the Car 1972 oil on canvas Hirshhorn Museum American
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Georges Pierre Seurat - Rue St. Vincent c. 1884 oil on panel The Fitzwilliam Museum French
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Francesco del Cossa - Saint Vincent Ferrer c. 1473-1475 egg tempera on popla The National Gallery, London Italian
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Vincent van Gogh, The Dustman, 1883
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Alex Katz - Large Head of Vincent 1982 aquatint Hofstra Museum American
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Vincent Longo, Untitled, 1954
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Scenes from the Passion of Saint Vincent of Saragossa and the History of His Relics,
Museum of Fine Arts -
Lid of the coffin of Pepi Seneb Egyptian First Intermediate Period, Dynasty 9, about 2130-1980
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Vincent Perez, Man, Thinking, 1966
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Roger Herman, VIncent and Gauguin, 1984
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Vincent van Gogh, Still Life, 19th century
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Whitlingham near Norwich George Vincent (British, 1796-1831)Oil on canvas; 25 1/4 x 36 in. (64.1
Museum of Fine Arts -
Hunting relief of Qar and Idu Egyptian Old Kingdom, Dynasty 6, reign of Pepi I
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Madame Ingouf, ca. 1790 Vincent (French, active about 1790)Ivory; Diameter 4 1/8 in. (105 mm)Bequest
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Vincent van Gogh, Shelter on Montmartre, circa 1886
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Irises, ca. 1890 Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)Oil on canvas; 29 x 36 1/4 in.
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Vincent Le Sueur, Hercule Gauloius or l"Eloquence, 17th - 18th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Vincent Le Sueur, Hercule Gauloius or l"Eloquence, 17th - 18th century
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William Vincent, Virgin and Child with St. John, 17th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Charles Turner, The Reverand William Vincent, Dean of Westminster, 1811
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Camillo Tinti, S. Vincentius A Paulo (St. Vincent de Paul), 18th century
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Francois-Andre Vincent, Woman at Window, 18th - 19th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Jacobus Coelemans, Portrait of Vincent Boyer, 17th - 18th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Vincent van Gogh, Path between Garden Walls (Auvers Landscape), circa 1890
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Vincent van Gogh, L"homme ý la pipe (Man with a Pipe [Portrait of Dr. Gachet]), 1890
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889 Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)Oil on canvas; 28 3/4 x
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Adolphe ThÈodore Jules Martial Potemont, Le Cimetiere St. Vincent, 19th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
WH, "a Master Craftsman" (Mr. F. Vincent Brooks), Men of the Day No. 2290, from Vanity Fair Supplement, 1912
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Francois-Andre Vincent, Left profile portrait of an Old Woman, 18th - 19th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
John Cochran, John Jervis, Earl of St. Vincent, 19th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Vincent Brooks Day & Son, Statesman No. 44 - Sir Robert Peel form Vanity Fair, March 19, 1870, 1870
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Francois-Andre Vincent, Portrait of Jean A. Chaptel, Comte de Chanteloup (1756-1822), circa 1795
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Sunflowers, 1887 Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)Oil on canvas; 17 x 24 in. (43.2 x
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts -
Artist: Mark Beard and New York: Vincent Fitz Gerald Title: Plate from the book Utah
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace, 1885 Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)Oil on canvas; 17
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Portrait of a Woman as Diana, 1760s Attributed to Arnaud Vincent de Montpetit (French, 1713-1800)Verre
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Girolamo Frezza, Pope Innocent XII, after Ludovicus David, engraved by Hubertus Vincent, 17th - 18th century
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
La Berceuse (Woman Rocking a Cradle) (Augustine-Alix Pellicot Roulin, 1851-1930), 1889 Vincent van Gogh (Dutch,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1810 Vincent Bertrand (French, born 1770, died after 1817)Ivory; 4
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Self-portrait with a Straw Hat; (verso) The Potato Peeler Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)Oil on

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