File talk:Lepper.jpg

During the summer of 1987 when painting Herbert Simon's official portrait for Carnegie Mellon University, Rappaort painted a number of portraits of former teachers and elders including this one of his longtime friend Robert L. Lepper whose broadly influential teaching had inspired Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein, Mel Bochner, and Jonathan Borofsky when they were students at what was then called Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh.

Although Rappaport loved Lepper's dialectics, and a few years later in 1989 wrote Robert Lepper, Carnegie Tech, and the Oakland Project documenting in general Lepper's influence, he wasn't in truth in Lepper's camp as say the above former students.

Still, it should be said that Rappaport's handling of material processes in otherwise more conservative painting did owe something to Lepper, and he was devoted to the old man now in his late eighties. But after years of chain-smoking, Lepper could barely breathe on his own and could sit for his portrait for only one hour. The portrait shows his mouth struggling for breath and, understandably, he disliked the work. Nonetheless, Lepper's portrait paired with Herbert Simon's makes a telling picture of these two distinctly different personalities who had befriended the artist.