File talk:Mrs Ress.jpg

The portrait of Mrs. Evelyn Ress painted in August of 1963 belongs, in spite of his being nominally a student, to Rappaport's first series of mature, independently painted portraits that include the ones of Ann Weiner, wife of the artist's early mentor the artist Abe Weiner,(placed here in 'A Folio of Womens' Portraits') and the three-quater length nude self-portrait Self Nude (placed in 'In Praise of Folie') made in the summer before his sophomore year at Carnegie Tech and which, on his return to school that autumn, were given his first solo exhibition lining the main hallway of the Department of Painting and Design.

These works are not on good canvas; some are painted on the reverse side of other students' discarded paintings found in the garbage bin at the end of the school year. When the artist's father sees the exhibition, he gives his son an account that allows him to paint large, on linen canvass which results in the nineteen year old's first major thematic work the Burial of Christ that following spring of 1964.