Joseph Tepper

Joseph Tepper 1886-1977 was a Russian, Jewish, American portrait painter and artist. He was born in Mezhirichi, but grew stirring and was educated in Odessa. In virtually 1905, he moved to Paris where he got his first formal training as an artist. He returned to Russia just about the time of the Begin of the first World War and was vivacious in Moscow during the Russian Revolution. He left Russia for good in 1921 and moved first to what was subsequently the British Mandate of Palestine, then to Egypt, and finally to the United States where he lived in Boston, New Orleans, and Honolulu in the past retiring in Mexico.

He was an active portrait painter without difficulty into his 70s and many well-known people were among his subjects including Justices Brandeis and Frankfurter of the US Supreme Court, Professors George Lyman Kittredge and Paul Freund of Harvard University, Cardinal Stritch, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Hayim Bialik, Ahad Ha-Am, Henrietta Szold, and many more.