“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 it is 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... Pepi’s art certainly posseses affinities with other New York School Action painters, but retains its own uniquiness. His choice to live in Italy from1949 to 1951, as well as his preference for painting in a consistently smaller format may have obscured the recognition and fame that might have been his.”

Vincent Pepi studied at Cooper Union and Pratt Institute. He traveled to Africa and Mexico. In 1949 he went to Rome, Italy. This was the same time that the Abstract Expressionist movement began in New York City. 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, Pepi studied briefly with Hans Hofmann. 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, from1955 until its closing in 1960.

Pepi attended the “Artists’ 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 while freeing him from the necessity of regularly exhibiting his work. 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 incorporate 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 saxophone. 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 Cézanne and Kandinsky”. His paintings do indeed, reveal a Cézanne-like underpinning 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.

“Amid the large number of American participants in the development and spread of AbstractExpressionism in the late 40’s and early 50’s, Vincent Pepi produced a body of work representing a serious, distinctive vision worthy of individual consideration.” After having studied at both Pratt Institute and Cooper Union in New York, Pepi spent 2 years painting in Rome, before returning to America. His art continues in the exploration of semi-illusionistic abstract phenomena, at times evoking a nearly palpable though fluctuant sense of space, that comprises an intriguing personal deviation from the American Abstract Expessionist norm, so often given to the pursuit of flatness of form and color. As on going research enriches the already remarkable story of mid-20th Century painterly abstraction in America, Vincent Pepi’s vital, vibrant oeuvre of small scale gestures and spatial inventivness offers timely reminder that much remains in this field to be appreciated anew.”