Robert Lepper was born September 10, 1906, in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania.^[3][4] His parents were Elizabeth L. and Charles W. Lepper, a purchasing agent for a gas company. Charles' parents were both born in Germany. Robert had an older brother, Charles.^[5]

He attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT), graduating in 1927. From graduation until 1928, he went to Europe and explored contemporary art.^[3] He then was an artist for the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph^[6] and lived with his parents.^[5]

Carnegie Institute of Technology edit

Lepper taught art from beginning in 1930 and helped to establish one of the country's first industrial design degree program at Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1934.^[1][3] He defined visual perception elements: area, line, space, volume, color, value and texture - and then the equivalents in industrial design, published in the 1938 "The Elements of Visual Perception, linking art elements to manufacturing processes" article.^[3]

He taught a class entitled "Individual and Social Analysis," in which he encouraged students to look at ordinary items from their daily lives as potential works of art. One of his students was Andy Warhol, then Andrew Warhola, who drew upon his meals at home and made Campbell's Soup Cans. Other notable students include Warhol's friend Philip Pearlstein, illustrator Leonard Kessler, editorial cartoonist Jimmy Margulies, conceptual artist Mel Bochner^[1] and Joyce Kozloff, who developed an interest in public art when working on Lepper's Oakland Project in which students went out into the Oakland neighborhood and made paintings or drawings of the infrastructure, buildings and people.^[7] The project was written about in Richard Rappaport's 1989 paper Robert Lepper, Carnegie Tech, and the Oakland Project.^[8] The Oakland Project was the first semester of the Individual and Social Analysis course he started in 1947; The Retrospective was the second semester class for the program.^[6]

One of his students, Mark Mentzer, is currently a professor at the CMU School of Design. He is one of the oldest professors currently teaching at Carnegie Mellon.^[9]

Artist edit

Lepper created sculptures and murals, many of which reflect his interest in industrial objects.^[1] He developed the combination of powdered pigments and acrylic resin, or plastic, for artwork.^[6]

In 1932, he made Crankshaft.^[3] He made several murals under the Federal Arts Project (1935-1943) of the Works Progress Administration, including post offices in Grayling, Michigan, and Caldwell, Ohio.^[6] He made the "highly acclaimed" mural of area industries for the Mining Industries Building (also known as the new Mineral Industries Building) at West Virginia University between 1940 and 1942.^[3][6]

The main entrance of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA) at Carnegie Mellon University has a sandblasted, bas-relief industrial mural made by Lepper in 1952. Robert Lepper made a number of public works: sculpture for the 1964 New York World's Fair.^[1][6] In the latter part of the 1960s he worked on his Transit Vehicle Design project to create more comfortable, angled passenger seats.^[6]

Awards edit

• 1961 - Craftsmanship Award, Pennsylvania Society of Architects of the American Institute of Architects^[6]
• 1975 - Respect and Admiration Award, Carnegie Mellon University^[6]
• 1989 - Industrial Designers Society of America's (IDSA) Education Award, in recognition of his "significant and distinguished contributions" in industrial design education.^[10]

Lepper married Helen Jewett of Pittsburgh on September 6, 1933, in Damariscotta, Maine,^[6][11] where she was born. They lived in Pittsburgh and had a daughter, Susan, born about 1935.^[6][12]

He died February 7, 1991, when he was living in Pittsburgh.^[1][4]

In 2002, The Andy Warhol Museum held the "Robert Lepper, Artist & Teacher" exhibit, which exhibited works from Lepper's estate and Carnegie Mellon. Some were shown for the first time. River Creature is a model of a 60-foot-tall, fire-breathing dragon proposed work of art, to "humorously" reflect Pittsburgh's industrial history.^[1] Carnegie established the Robert Lepper Distinguished Lecture series in his honor.^[13]

In 1994, Norbert Nathanson and Dale Stein, both former students of Lepper, produced a video documentary An Affectionate Memoir, Robert L. Lepper. The documentary was narrated by Lepper's daughter, Susan Lepper, and may be found in the Lepper Archives, Hunt Library of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.^[14]

• West Virginia & Regional History Center at West Virginia University, Robert Lepper, Artist, Program, Lecture Notes, and Photographs of Mural

• Art Instruction. Watson-Guptill Publications; 1938. p. 8, 37.
• Victor Bockris. Warhol: The Biography. Da Capo Press, Incorporated; 29 April 2009. ISBN 978-0-7867-3028-5. p. 59, 70.
• John J. Curley. A Conspiracy of Images: Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, and the Art of the Cold War. Yale University Press; 3 December 2013. ISBN 978-0-300-18843-1. p. 53, 240–243.
• Michael J. Golec. The Brillo Box Archive: Aesthetics, Design, and Art. UPNE; 2008. ISBN 978-1-58465-701-9. p. 85, 92, 143.
• Williams & McCormick: American Arts. Williams & McCormick; 1987.
• Amedeo Modigliani. Modigliani. Ediz. Inglese. Taschen; 2000. ISBN 978-3-8228-6319-0. p. 16.
• Howard Singerman. Art Subjects: Making Artists in the American University. University of California Press; 1999. ISBN 978-0-520-21502-3. p. 232.
• Timeline: A Publication of the Ohio Historical Society. The Society; 1989. p. 16.
• Reva Wolf. Andy Warhol, Poetry, and Gossip in the 1960s. University of Chicago Press; 8 December 1997. ISBN 978-0-226-90491-7. p. 9–10.