To Steve Pepper

D. STEPHEN PEPPER REMEMBERED AT NATIONAL CENTER MEMORIAL
Steve Pepper, who died in Italy three weeks ago at the age of 63, was one of the earliest and mightiest builders of Lyndon LaRouche's international philosophical association; one of its most passionate and skillful teachers; and one who--through all the many and various relationships which he bore to our association over 35 years--remained always its well-beloved friend. We print here the remembrances of him given at a two-hour memorial of song, poetry and speech yesterday evening, so that those who did not have the fortune to know Steve well, may know what manner of man he was, and so that others may remember.

Molly Kronberg opened the memorial by remembering Steve Pepper's four like passions--truth, beauty, justice, and merriment--and she later closed it, by observing that ``there was a victorious quality to all of Steve愀 life: he grappled with life, with ideas, with political strategies, with truths of art; always with great passion--and he won.斐 As Renaissance art historian, teacher, organizer, and compassionate human being, he always sought to lift up others and impel them towards this idea of victory--victory for the truth. The tribute of a beautiful rendering of ``Recordare, Jesu pie斐 from Mozart愀 {Requiem}, was given by Richard Freeman, Sylvia Brewda, Kathy Wolfe, and Mike Billington, with Art Ticknor accompanying.
- Of Italy and New Jersey -
Michele Steinberg presented the account of Paolo Vitali and Dino De Paoli of how--as Umberto Pascali later noted--the LaRouche organization in Italy actually began: ``We came to know Steve Pepper many years ago: he was distributing New Solidarity at a political demonstration in London, in the Summer of 1973. It was an accidental meeting, but it contributed to changing our life forever.

``It was Steve, primarily, who introduced us to the ideas and the movement of Lyndon LaRouche. We became, immediately, friends, conquered by his openness and knowledge, that passionate will to change things for the better, as Steven would characteristically emphasize during a political argument, by constantly hitting his right fist into the palm of his left hand. This sympathetic image has lived on in our minds ever since--a struggle still ongoing. ``An old friend has passed away. Perhaps the most durable legacy he left was that joyous sense of real life, far away from the academic world he had consciously rejected. Steve was the acknowledged `world authority� on [17th Century Italian artist] Guido Reni, but, for us, he remained the `political organizer� we came to know so many years ago. What vividly remains in our memory was our common laughter at his telling the story--in an Italian language he loved so much, he did not fear to spontaneously `improve it�--how the great Italian architect Brunelleschi `tricked� the chief mason Grasso around the construction of the Florentine dome. For Steve, the Renaissance was real, no pompous academia: it became also our life and struggle.斐

Michele added her own recollection of an important turning point in the formation of the Labor Committees in New Jersey--when, in 1972 at Rutgers, she and other fledging members managed to fill an auditorium of students and teachers to listen to Steve Pepper lecture on Renaissance art. This was unlike any lecture on art that anyone there had heard or imagined: Steve's total insistence that beauty was truth, and his proofs of it from Renaissance works, ``brought the house down斐 in furious debate and wonderment, and both psychologically strengthened and expanded the New Jersey Labor Committees on the spot.

Ed Spannaus read two other remembrances from Steve's work in Italy. This from Muriel Mirak-Weissbach in Wiesbaden, Germany: ``In recalling the many good times we had together in Italy, there are two episodes that stand out in my mind. One was the visit which Steve arranged for me to make with him, to the studio of a restorer in Bologna, who was commissioned with dealing with works of many great masters. What the man was working on at the time, was a magnificent Raphael Madonna. To be able to see this work, in the process of being brought back to its original splendor, was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I shall never forget. Steve was deeply moved, as was I, as we stood, simply awed at the masterpiece....

``The other episode was more directly political, and reaches back to the early years of our existence as an organization in Italy. Following the explosion of recruitment in by now world-famous Ascoli Piceno, in late 1973/early 1974, we set up locals in several cities, among them Rome. But the means we had at our disposal--those were the days when we had no organizing income to speak of, no regular newspaper yet--were so humble, that we could not afford a decent office. What served for an office, was an `independent�--one room, one-story cement structure, that looked like an abandoned gas station, located in the middle of a colony of other such structures.... ``One day, Steve came to visit the office. I had briefed him beforehand, in the manner of a forewarning, not to expect too much, and told him we were engaged in a crash program effort to pull together the funds to find a decent office. Steve wanted to encourage the effort, so when he arrived at the cement shack, dressed, as always, very well--I think he may even have had a hat on--he began to give a speech, in Italian, to our few members on the importance of the effort. The word in Italian for office, is `sede,� which Steve, in his rather special relationship to the language, insisted on replacing by `sedia,� also an Italian word, but which means, chair.

``So there he was, holding forth to our members (who did not know much English at the time), and accompanying his bellowing with dramatic gesticulation, about the historical significance of our getting a `sedia.� `Dobbiamo trovare la sedia!� he boomed. `Non e posibile avere un惱rganizazzione Italiana, senza la sedia!�

``Shortly thereafter, we managed to rent an office, which constituted a big step forward. Then, and for many, many years thereafter, our members continued to refer to the office, affectionately, as `la sedia.� (And to refer to Steve, as Stefano Pepe.)斐

Then from Claudio Ciccanti in Milan: ``In 1520, the great poet Ariosto wrote an epitaph upon the tragic and premature death of Raphael Sanzio, which went as follows: `The stranger be warned to deal with mediocre things, since the envious fates prevent lofty men from living long.� These words returned to my mind when I received the sad news of the death of my friend, Steve. ``When I met him in Rome, at the end of the 1970s, Stephen was a very important person for me. I was a young art {appassionato,} and I had a particular passion for the study of the School of Raphael and Renaissance art in general. Stephen, on the other hand, was known around the world as an art critic and expert on late Renaissance painting. I had carefully read his writings, and I was particularly attracted by his ability to explain himself, and to fully, carefully explain the work of artists. He distinguished himself very much, I think, from that academic world made up of glorious descriptions, but with very little content.... I realized that my friend Stephen wrote with the love for transmitting understanding to others, and not merely to show off his knowledge. He was an ingenious and authentic scholar.
``In those years, he was much spoken of in Rome; critics, artists, and assiduous intellectuals who often frequented those marvelous streets in the historical center of Rome, always had some question for Stephen when they saw him. They... knew he was the highest authority on Guido Reni and his school. I was often present during these conversations... The time when we found ourselves in front of `The School of Athens� of Raphael, he wanted me to explain that fresco to him.
``That day passed quickly; Stephen had me speak for hours and hours, he filled me with questions, and I, besides thinking of the answers, thought of his great humility. I was a nobody, he was a famous historian, but one who still had the love for knowledge of a young student. However, [when] I ventured to claim that, in my view, Guido Reni was greater than Caravaggio, he looked at me with astonishment and marvel, and immediately asked me to prove it. It was difficult to dialogue with Stephen! He was humble, but as all lofty men, he was also very exacting. He said to me, though, that I had succeeded, when I explained that, according to me, Caravaggio composed his figures from life and then copied them how they were, while Reni, on the other hand, imagined them in his mind, thought of them, and then painted them, thus transmitting a metaphysical idea. `Like Raphael and Leonardo,� he responded....
``He was a man of noble thoughts. He lived in the present, but always thought of history. His creativity made him irreplaceable, and his passing has left a great void given the mediocrity now to be found.斐
- Music, Family, and--Baltimore -
After these recollections of Steve's instigations to the growth of the Labor Committees, in only two or three of the many places he did so, the affair passed again to musical offerings: Nancy Shavin and John Sigerson played the {adagio cantabile} movement from Beethoven's violin-piano sonata, Op. 30, No. 2; and the Leesburg chorus sang Mozart's ``Ave Verum Corpus,斐 and Brahms� setting of Schiller愀 ``Dem Dunkeln Schoss der heil愜en Erde.斐 These were all done very movingly, in every sense of the word. The chorus was accompanied by Marcia Merry Baker, Steve愀 former wife and the organizer of much of the memorial event.
Steve's younger brother, Michael Pepper, who had met several of us at the funeral service in New York, spoke simply: ``I knew Steve very closely only during my childhood and young manhood. I have a different idea of him... but with me, too, Steve was my guide to the universe... He introduced me to art in an unusual way, by introducing me to artists! He took me along on many adventures. I惴 so grateful that he was my brother, and I am very grateful to you.斐

Steve's widow Geraldina then spoke very feelingly of a certain quality. She quoted Steve's remark about a famous art historian he worked with, after organizing a {Festschrift} for the man: ``I never realized how important he was.斐 She said the same thing was striking her now, with respect to Steve, though married to him for 17 years. But she said that he always emphasized to her, the good things about herself, and that she came to think about herself thus through his eyes: ``If we see ourselves through the eyes of those who love us, we will be able to grow... and find out what we are here for on this earth.斐

There were recollections of Steve's groundbreaking organizing of another location--Baltimore, and Virginia--the location from which many of us first came to know him. John Ascher of Leesburg, who took courses from Steve at Johns Hopkins University, told a humorous story of one: ``I first met Steve when I moved back to my home town, Baltimore, in the fall of 1972. I remember how Steve used to hold court at the Wyman Park Restaurant, the scene of many intense political discussions.
``One unusual incident very clear in my mind, comes from an art history class I took from Steve, while attending Johns Hopkins University in 1973. This was during the period in the ICLC of upheaval around LaRouche愀 `Beyond Psychoanalysis� paper and related memos.
``One day, Steve announced to the class, which was a small seminar of five people, approximately the following: `Everything that I have said in this class up until now, and all that you have believed in life, must now be overturned.�
``He then went on to discuss how human history had been undermined by male impotence, and therefore progress could only be made by submission to the higher order of humanity represented by the unblocked female emotions. All art must be understood from that standpoint. Men must resign as leaders, and women must take charge.
``Poor Rebecca Love! The only woman in the class (whom I had known since junior high) looked perplexed. I was the only student who had the slightest idea where this revolution was coming from.

``Steve愀 constant search for the truth, his willingness to challenge axioms, with his unlimited knowledge of Renaissance art, became a major influence in my life at that time. And Steve愀 intense passion, seen in these early days, was just as evident when Steve, along with Gerri, graciously gave Shelley and me a one-day walking tour in Rome, in the fall of 1999. Thank you, Steve.斐

And this from Alan and Nina Ogden:
``Recalling those days when we first met Steve, twenty-nine and one-half years ago, really got us thinking about the process of recruitment. Nine of us, who all joined in one fell swoop, in our late teens and early 20s, were already veterans of civil rights, labor, and student political movements. We nine had gotten together, to figure out `what is to be done,� during the demoralized period after the assassination of Martin Luther King, when whites were asked to leave the civil rights movement. Our best trait was that we recognized that we didn愒 know what to do at all, but after August 15, 1971, we decided to join the ICLC. If we could have `seen ourselves as others see us,� we would have laughed our heads off. ``...we were self-righteous, know-it-all young people, living in a rickety old house by the Newport News Shipyards, in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Steve came down from Baltimore five or six weekends straight, in the fall of 1971, arriving on Friday and staying 愒il Sunday night or Monday morning, teaching us... LaRouche愀 dialectical economics. These were all-day and half-the-night classes and discussions,... He seemed ancient to us--he must have been at least in his early 30s--and he began to stir a love of universal history and culture in us, in an entirely open, non-stuffy manner, complementing us with little quips as we began to `clean up our act� a little. Steve noticed one Friday when he arrived, that Nina had got some new, more fashionable glass frames, and enthusiastically complemented her: `Those are really class-for-itself glasses!� he said....
``In the terminology used by a new wave of strange young recruits, `Steve was really cool.� 斐

Marianna Wertz, who read the Ogdens' message, recalled her own and Will's experiences with Steve Pepper's teaching and ``his books and records,斐 and said that ``It is through his classes, that I know what I know about Renaissance art.斐
- `The Loudest Laugh I Ever Heard� -
Anita Gallagher of Leesburg, an old friend of Steve's, read recollections from Mark and Mary Burdman in Wiesbaden. Mark's was of a laugh: ``I was always fond of Steve, because he showed an emotional generosity, at times when it was most needed, that I found most rare in our world of today. Also, his lessons on art were unforgettable, as during one of his famous tours of Rome, in Autumn, 1982, on the occasion of the founding of the Club of Life, when I was fortunate enough to be there. ``But more than anything else, what I will always remember and cherish, is his sense of humor, and even more, HIS LAUGH. He grasped the absurdities of our current civilization (or, anti-civilization), and would often, as we would share a good story, make a comment along the lines of, `Things today are so crazy; what a world we live in!�
``In 1982, he visited my apartment in Wiesbaden. I was living, then, on the second floor of a small house. He was looking through my books, and started reading one--at which point a laugh erupted, that, literally, shook the house to its foundation. What had caused that eruption, was that the author, named Jan Morris, had, during the writing of the book, changed sex, from the earlier John Morris, and that was dutifully recorded, in the short bio of the author. This is no minor affair: John/Jan Morris is one of the main historians (or, herstorians) of the British Empire and Venice, and is currently producing a book attacking Abraham Lincoln.
``I only wish I had a recording of that laugh. I would simply call the author, and/or publisher, and say, `Here愀 what we think about your work,� and play the tape. Steve would undoubtedly enjoy that. To this day, that night愀 laugh is still the loudest and most intense laugh I have ever heard, and I frequently refer to the story when the subject of the benefits of laughing comes up. It is only one example, among many, by which Steve Pepper愀 legacy lives after him.斐

And Mary's: ``Of everything I learned from Steve on the questions of great art and its meaning for political life, the two following are those which I remember most vividly, and recall most often.
``One, was in a talk he gave, I think in 1981, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Steve spoke of a theme which he also incorporated into his English-language book on Guido Reni. Using the painting {St. Joseph and the Christ Child} as an example, Steve spoke of the meaning of the words `the pursuit of happiness,� in the American Declaration of Independence. You cannot understand `happiness,� as it was meant by the writers of the Declaration, in the terms in which this word is used today, he said. Actually, what would come closest in modern times to this meaning, is to use the word `grace.� The Founding Fathers meant, that an inalienable right of every person, is to pursue God愀 grace, and to find their own purpose, and their happiness, in that grace. Such an idea was to be found in the Reni painting, showing St. Joseph, as a blessed, kind--and happy--man, holding the Christ Child, the future of humanity, in his arms.
``The other point, was how the great artists of the period of the 17th century, created physical depth in their paintings, and at the same time, depth of meaning, by {ambiguity}. This point came up, in Steve愀 comparisons of the paintings of Reni and the violent and murderous Caravaggio, now being hailed as one of the first `modern� painters. Thge issue was not just Caravaggio愀 repeated depictions of the triumph of degenerate sensuality--Steve would always emphasize that Caravaggio painted his scenes, no matter how active `in and of� themselves, against {blank} backgrounds. The background is one color and one shade of light; it has no ambiguity, no obscurity; it has no {depth}. Each scene ends then and there, in a (generally awful) existentialist moment.
``Reni and other such artists of the Italian 17th century, painted using the mixture of light and dark--{chiaroscuro}-- especially in the background, to create a depth of meaning, where Caravaggio just painted a blank. It is typical, that now Caravaggio is being put up as linked to Rembrandt--when just the opposite is the case.
``This idea is most clearly seen, I think, in the painting by Rembrandt, of {St. Peter Denying Christ}. In the foreground, brightly lit by a lantern, stands St. Peter and a circle of people accusing him of being a follower of the betrayed and arrested Christ. It is the moment when the cock is crowing, and Peter, shocked, is realizing that Christ愀 warning to him, that he would deny Christ three times, was true. In the half background of the picture, painted in half-darkness, stands Christ, surrounded by [here a line is missing] would lead them.
``Yet, at the very same time, {from} this depth in the painting, the figure of Christ expresses his great love and forgiveness for Peter, the rock on whom his church is founded.
``This principle, that truth-telling about the human condition, and the great love of Christ, are so closely bound together, is one that animated Steve's life, I think. It is one for which I will always remember him.''
- Simultaneity of Eternity -
Then Umberto Pascali, of Leesburg--one of those Italians recruited, in Ascoli Piceno, by those two Ascoli-Picenians Steve Pepper had met in London--beautifully recited in Italian, two parts of Cantos of Dante's {Divine Comedy}, which he had chosen well. The first was the lines of Canto XXVI of the {Inferno}, in which Ulysses tells of his final voyage, through the Pillars of Hercules, into and across the Atlantic, and with the sinking of his ship, down into the underworld. The second was from the final Canto XXXIII of the {Paradiso}, Dante's ascent to view the eternal light: `O Light Supreme... The Love which moves the sun and other stars.� Jeff Steinberg spoke briefly about the New York funeral service for Steve, at which his older brother had talked about ``the quality of innerness斐 which Steve had--inner-directedness. The Leesburg chorus sang the spiritual, ``Steal Away,斐 and with its final repetition of the truth, ``I ain愒 got long to stay here,斐 this memorial of the life of Dr. David Stephen Pepper might have ended. But here Molly Kronberg reminded everyone of his ``quality of victoriousness,斐 and the whole gathering sang the Chanukah song, ``Adon Olam斐 (``Lord of the World斐), which was set to G.F. Handel愀 aria, ``See, the Conquering Hero Comes.斐