About Beverly Pepper:

Beverly Pepper, a world-renowned sculptor, was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1924. Pepper began her artistic career as a painter, and it wasn’t until she took a trip to the temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia that she became a sculptor. She was introduced to metal welding and working in an art class at the Pratt Institute.

Her most characteristic medium involves heavy metals, including; cast iron, bronze, steel, stainless steel, and sometimes stone. She created many works, while remaining independent and impartial to any particular art movement. Most of Pepper’s work is land art. The art interacts with the landscape. Pepper also creates massive site-specific sculptures that interact with the observer.

About the Normanno Column:

The Normanno Column was created in 1979-1980. The piece was moved to Western Washington University. It is an abstract and geometric sculpture made out of cast iron. Most of Pepper’s work was abstract. As an abstract artist, and an artist that remained independent of any artistic movement, Pepper’s work has little political significance. Abstract art is aesthetically focused and without reference to visual cues, therefore it would be difficult to assign it any meaning or significance in relation to its time period. Instead, the metal totems are known for their relation to industry and industrial tools.

In the text of Beverly Pepper: Sculpture in Place, Pepper explains that the Normanno Column is supposed to work with its surroundings and become part of the earth (composition). The column is intended to interact with its viewers and environment through the use of light and the empty spaces from the hole and lines within it. Pepper desires that her art “has a powerful physical presence, but is at the same time inwardly turned, seeming capable of intense self-absorption.”

During the time period of the Normanno Column, Pepper produced several sculptures that were fairly similar. This collection is known as a series of metal totem poles. Reflecting the same vertical prowess as a totem, the sculptures are characteristically geometric. They’re much different than the freeform shapes of Pepper’s larger sculptures.

During the Period of the Normanno Column:

In the late 1970s-early 1980s, the Neo-Expressionism artistic style became popular. Neo-expressionists aimed to portray subjects in a recognizable, vivid fashion. They rejected the ideas of abstraction used by Minimalists and Conceptualists.

There were also a number historic moments that took place around the world in the late 1970s (note that Pepper’s work has little to no relation to politics):

  • From 1975-1979, about 1.7 million people died in Cambodia during the reign of Khmer communist leader Pol Pot.
  • In 1976, President Jimmy Carter was elected as the 39th President. He created the Department of Education and even after his time in office, he continued to fight for human rights.
  • In 1977, Apple jump starts the digital age by introducing one of the first successful home computers, the Apple II.
  • In 1979, the U.S. experienced the worst nuclear accident in American history when large amounts of radioactive substance were released into the environment at the Three Mile power plant in Pennsylvania, causing 140,000 people to evacuate their homes. The cleanup took about 14 years to complete.
  • In 1979, Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s first female Prime Minister.
  • The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were treaties designed to keep track of nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The first treaty was signed in 1972 and the second in 1979, but the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan after the second signing, increasing tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

Normanno Column Plaque:

Photo by Jordan Tu

Blbliography:

Video: Morgan Stilp-Allen

Photo: Jordan Tu

Description: Jordan Tu and William Eames