Saul Tepper (1899-1987) was a native New Yorker, born on the Lower East Side, who had a highly successful career as an illustrator in New York City. As a youngster, he was given a correspondence course award at the Landon School of Art, and he also studied at The Cooper Union, the Art Students League, and the Grand Central Art School under illustration artist Harvey Dunn. Tepper's painting, Academic Study of A Man, was probably done around that time.

Tepper's characteristic style was realistic, with bold contrasts of light and dark and close attention to detail. He first worked as a letterer in a fashion catalog studio. At the height of his career, he produced illustrations for most of the major magazines of the time such as The Saturday Evening Post, Liberty Magazine, Woman's Home Companion, and American Magazine, as well as advertising art for such major accounts as General Electric, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Mobil and Texaco.

Tepper was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1980. He won the Harvard Award in 1929, the Newspaper Award in 1936, and the Annual Advertising Award in 1940. For many years, he taught at the Pratt Institute, The Cooper Union, the New York Art Directors Club, and the Society of Illustrators. His illustration work was included in the 2003 exhibition at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Pomona, exploring a century of work from the collection of the Society of Illustrators.

Meanwhile, he also had a second career as a popular songwriter. Music by him was recorded by Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Ezio Pina, Glenn Miller and Harry James, and he wrote many music entertainments for the Society of Illustrators where in 1980, he was elected to the Hall of Fame.

Sources:
Walt Reed, The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000
Harvey Dunn: Illustrator, Teacher, Painter: Selections from the Kelly Collection of American Illustration. Dover, Delaware: Biggs Museum of American Art. 2001.
John Held Jr. and the Jazz Age. Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge. 2002.

Sources:
http://illustratedgallery.com/collection/tepper.htm
http://www.illustration-house.com/current/abp14/abp14_255.html
http://www.georgeglazer.com/prints/art20c/tepper.ht
http://www.societyillustrators.org/permanent_collection/laureates.html