During World War II he turned his designing talents to aid the war
effort as a tool designer for Lockheed aircraft, but never abandoned his love for figure
drawing and teaching.
In 1947 he founded the Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles, an art
school which flourishing from 1947 to 1953, became an important center for
experimental figure drawing, art theory 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,
painter Frederick Hammersly, 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 comedienne Fannie Brice often came to the Jepson Art
Institute to hear the lectures of Rico Lebrun and to sit in on classes with Herbert
Jepson, who was known as a consumate figure draughtsman. Jepson, well known for his
enthusiasm and generous nature was the first to hire young artists Bill Brice and Howard
Warshaw giving a start to their notable achievements in art and education.
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 the founder of the
Western Institute of Serigraphy.
His early interest in furniture and
design, led him to create a design department at Jepson Art Instutute with teachers Bill
Moore, a well known graphic designer, and Kip Stewart, who later became a well known
California designers.
After the close of the Jepson Art Institute in 1954,
Herbert Jepson headed up
the drawing department at Otis Art Institute and later taught again at Chouinard, at USC
and UCLA.
Among the many students who studied with
Herbert Jepson at Chouinard, and who later achieved distinction as artists, were Ed
Rusha, Larry Bell, and Joe Goode.
In his later years, he returned to
his love of wood and three dimensional forms. He opened his own studio in the 1970s, and
drawing from his past love of wood and three dimensional design he constructed large wood
sculptural forms, such as shown on this page.
Herbert Jepson is survived by his wife, artist Marcia
Shlaudeman Jepson and their two children: artist Stephen Jepson and poet Elena Karina
Byrne and several grandchildren. He is also survived by two sons from a previous
marriage: Neil Jepson and Nicholas Jepson and their children.
The information in the above
biography and the images on this page have been provided by Marcia Shlaudeman Jepson.
Herbert Jepson's artworks shown here
are not available for sale.
