Jepson Art Institute

Jepson Art Institute, founded in Los Angeles in 1947 by artist Herbert Jepson, was an art school which flourished from 1947 to 1953 and became an important center for experimental figure drawing, art theory (aesthetics) and printmaking. On the faculty, internationally acclaimed figurative artists Rico Lebrun and Francis deErdely attracted students who later achieved distinction in their own fields such as sculptor Marisol, painters Frederick Hammersly and Delmer J. Yoakum, illustrator David Passalaqua, art director Richard Bousman, and architectural sculptor Malcolm Leland. Show business luminaries of the 1950s such as Vincent Price, Zero Mostel and comedian Fannie Brice often came to the Jepson Art Institute to hear the lectures of Lebrun and to sit in on classes with Jepson, who was known as a consummate figure draughtsman.

The art of serigraphy was pioneered at the Jepson Art Institute by printmaker Guy McCoy, who was among the first to develop the techniques of silk screen printing as a fine art medium. Jepson was also the founder of the Western Institute of Serigraphy. The institute also had a design department with teachers Bill Moore, a well known graphic designer, and Kip Stewart, who later became a well-known California designer.

The Jepson Art Institute closed in 1954.

External links

* [http://www.mgaa.net/Main%20Gallery/Jepson/index.htm Herbert Jepson biography]