Beverly Pepper (1922–2020)

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Beverly Pepper (1922–2020) | The American sculptor Beverly Pepper, who is known for her large-scale, geometric monuments in outdoor settings, has died at the age of 97. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Pepper studied industrial and advertising design and photography at the Pratt Institute; after the war, she moved to Paris and then to Italy, near Rome, where she continued to live for the rest of her life. Her turn to sculpture took place in 1960, inspired by a trip with her daughter to the ruined temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. In 2013 she received a lifetime achievement award from the International Sculpture Center and her work is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston among others. The Beverly Pepper Sculpture Park opened in the Umbrian town of Todi last year.

Yale art history department defends changes to undergraduate survey courses | The undergraduate art history department at Yale University has responded to the controversy surrounding its decision, first reported last month in the student-run Yale Daily News, to replace its two-part undergraduate survey course, ‘Introduction to Art History’, which primarily focuses on Western (and some ancient Egyptian and Middle Eastern) art. Explaining the decision in a letter to the College Art Association, the department referred to art history as ‘a global discipline’, the scope of which could not be adequately covered by a ‘survey course taught in the space of a semester’. The department proposes instead to arrange its teachings around a wider range of courses focusing on different world traditions or offering comparative perspectives.

Antony Hudek named director of Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens | Antony Hudek has been appointed director of Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Deurle. Hudek has served most recently as director of a curatorial studies programme offered jointly by two schools and the municipal museum of contemporary art in Ghent. He has also worked as a curator at Tate Liverpool, Raven Row in London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp. Taking over from Joost Declercq, who is retiring, Hudek begins the role on 17 February.