John R. Pepper

Pepper was born in Rome, Italy in 1958 to Curtis Bill Pepper, a war correspondent and the head of the Rome bureau for Newsweek magazine, and the sculptor Beverly Pepper. He has one sister, poet Jorie Graham. He was raised in Rome, Italy. He studied History of Art at Princeton University (1976) where he was also one of the original painting members of the '185 Nassau Street Painting Program' and was awarded the Whitney Painting Fellowship in 1975. In 1981 Pepper was admitted as a 'Directing Fellow' to The American Film Institute, Los Angeles.

Pepper began his career as an apprentice to Ugo Mulas who gave him his first formal training in the art of street photography. Pepper pursued his work in photography (analog) for three decades while simultaneously directing in the theatre and in film. His show 'Rome: 1969 – An Hommage to Italian Neo-Realist Cinema' (USA/France 2008) lead him back to his native Italy where Lanterna Magica Edizioni published the book Sans Papier (Italy 2011) with subsequent exhibitions in Rome, Venice, Saint Petersburg (Russia), Paris, Palermo (Sicily).

In 2012 the Manège Museum in Saint Petersburg, (Russia) showed Pepper's new work which the Istituto Superiore Per la Storia della Fotografia (Italy) published as a new book of photographs in 2014 called 'Evaporations' that previews at the Officina delle Zattere in Venice (Italy).

In 2015, the Italian Institute of Culture and the Russia Federation Ministry of Culture sponsored a traveling exhibition that opened at the Rosphoto Photography Museum (Saint Petersburg, Russia).

In March 2015 Pepper had a retrospective exhibit at the Showcase Gallery in Dubai (United Arab Emirates).

The Italian Institute of Culture and The United States Mission in Russia sponsored a travelling exhibition (2015/2016) of Evaporations throughout Siberia, Russia (Vladivostok, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Yekaterinburg, Samara and Moscow.

From November 2016 to January 2017 Pepper's Evaporations / Испарения was shown in Rome, (Italy) at Fondazione Terzo Pilastro e Meditteraneo's, 'Museo Palazzo Cipolla'. The monumental exhibit consisted of 52 works ranging from 120 x160cm to 3m x 5m. ...

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