Rago Auctions

“The cups’ ability to capture and play with light animates them. Their appearances are malleable and are greatly influenced by their environment. These cups must have an animistic presence to succeed–they must rival the presence of objects that have withstood years of experience. They communicate more immediately, but in a more abstract fashion than do Tepper’s drawings, and demonstrate Tepper’s renewed belief in the eloquence of a traditional art object...

Tepper, like many artists today, is not aligned to any one medium. His allegiance is to concepts and to the cross-fertilization that results from working in many media. He endows his creations with a powerful presence, the presence that results from an object having borne witness through time. His best creations become animistic, like his best subject matter. They are full of experience, not empty perfection.”

— Excerpted from Paul Schimmel's essay Animism, published in the 1983 catalogue Irvin Tepper: Cups, Drawings, Stories