Onofrio Pepe was born in Nocera Inferiore on February 12, 1945. Graduated from the Art Institute of Salerno, he lives and works in Florence, where he has been working as a sculptor for many years. In his artistic production the Myth assumes a role of undisputed preeminence and provides an inexhaustible source of themes and subjects, which transport the artist to a symbolic universe to which he pays homage every time with greater finesse: a universe to be considered as a sacred dimension. His first solo show in the monumental cloister of Santa Croce in Florence dates back to 1980, followed the following year by the exhibition The Afternoon of a Faun, at the French Institute of Florence. In 1989, Pepe inaugurated two other solo exhibitions in the Cenacolo del Ghirlandaio (under the patronage of the Municipality of Florence) and at the Pasquini Castle in Castiglioncello (inaugurated by the then Prime minister Giovanni Spadolini). Other exhibitions are Eros in the Myth (1991, Villa Arrivabene, organised by the Municipality of Florence); The Myth of Europe (1999, Florence), visited by the president of Portugal Jorge Sampaio and Prince Charles of England; Path in the Myth (1999, Florence); The Flight of Icarus (1999, Florence). In 2003, the European University Institute of Florence acquired the work The Door of Myth (the bronze version was exhibited in 2005 in the Uffizi court); the following year, the Regional Council of Tuscany acquired the sculpture Woman with the Dove (a bronze to commemorate the attack on the Twin Towers); while, in 2007, the Municipality of Nocera Inferiore commissioned Pepe The Fertility Fountain.
The exhibition Athena in Atheneum (2008) was presented in Piazza San Marco at the Rectorate of the University of Florence. It was concluded with the permanent location of the bronze Minerva there. In 2011, the exhibition Colours of Myths took place at the European University Institute in the Badia Fiesolana’s cloister. The following year, with the solo exposition The Sculptor of the Gods, Pepe exhibited in the National Park of Santiago de Chile. In 2015, at the invitation of Vittorio Sgarbi, he presented three of his bronzes at the EXPO in Milan, in the exhibition The Tresure of Italy.
Pepe will then return to exhibit in Florence with two other solo expositions – the first, in 2017, in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo; the second, in 2019, in Piazzale Michelangelo – and in the native Nocera Inferiore, in 2022, with the exhibition Divinitas.
On behalf of the Tuscany Region, in 1998 he crafted the Extraordinary Golden Pegasus for the Polish director Jerzy Grotowski. In 2004, his The Rape of Europa will be donated to Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who will then give Pepe, during the exhibition The Door of Myth, the National medal for artistic merits. In 2023, the Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia commissions the artist the commemorative medal for the bicentenary of the death of Antonio Canova. Between February and March 2024, on the occasion of its first centenary, the University of Florence invited Maestro Pepe to organise the exhibition Recovered Myths, set up in two locations: the Palace of the Rectorate where the sculptures of the Myth of Europe are exhibited, and the Renaissance courtyard of the Buontalenti’s Unfinished Palace, where for the first time his 30 stelae were exhibited side by side so as to build The Myth’s Wall. The sculpture Apollo on His Chariot was personally donated by Pepe to the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella. Also in 2024, the exhibition entitled The colours of Myths was presented in the halls of Siena’s University for Foreigners.