JR Pepper is a Brooklyn-born-and-raised art history professor,  photographer, lecturer, and cemetery tour guide. She holds both a BA and an MA in art history, specializing in Surrealism and the history of photography. Her artwork has been featured in shows through  the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Group, Gristle Art Gallery, Rogue Space Gallery Chelsea, Trenton Artworks, Greenpoint Gallery, The Jefferson Market Library, Gallery 198, Solas Studios, and various gallery shows in New York, Paris, and Chile.

Pepper works a variety of jobs but is a proud adjunct professor at CUNY Brooklyn College, Digital Imaging Specialist for The Burns Archive, resident lecturer at Lectures on Tap, and  tour guide at Brooklyn's own Green-Wood Cemetery. She is also the sheepish photographer and author of  Buried Boston: America's Revolutionary Necropolis, and Buried New Orleans: The Resilient Cemeteries of the Crescent City, both of which are currently available for purchase through America Through Time.

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Various websites and publications have featured her spirit photographs and her lectures, including About.com, Kotaku, and VICE: The Creator's Project, The General Manga Initiative, The Village Voice, Haunted America FAQ by Dave Thompson, Musee Magazine , and Chilean fanzine Estrellita Mia. ​

Professionally, she spent over 15 years working in fashion, advertising, and publishing, working in archival management, image licensing, and photo research. She has worked on projects for   numerous artists and museums, including Annie Leibowitz, Roni Horn, Steven Meisel, Hedi Slimane, Guy Bourdin, Taschen Books, The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Sex, and The Morbid Anatomy Museum. She is a credited retoucher/image restoration specialist  on  Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas (seriously), Jack the Ripper (FAQ), Walter Potter's Curious World of Taxidermy, The Morbid Anatomy Anthology, albums/compilations by Zilmrah, and numerous publications with The Burns Archive, including the award-winning Picturing Freedom. Additionally, she  worked as a photo-researcher on a variety of publications, including Art Desk magazine, Women Artists in Midcentury America: A History in Ten Exhibitions, Boobs in Art, Holzer-Sims, & The Red Menace: How Lipstick Changed the Face of American History.

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JR Pepper lectures regularly at Brooklyn Brainery, Lectures on Tap, Odd Salon NY,  The Dead Ladies Show, and The House of Know at The Flying Fox. She has spoken at numerous panels and conventions, including NY Anime Fest, Salon Con, New York Comic Con, Tokyo in Tulsa, Haunt Faire, Morbid Anatomy Museum, The Southern Sideshow Hootenanny, and the Long Island Convention of Horror. More recently, she was an instructor for spirit photography and cyanotype workshops with Atlas Obscura.

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Her other bizarre credits include published horror writer, video game voiceover artist, backup/solo singer (at Don't Tell Mama and the Triad Theatre in NYC), licensed and registered minister, and veterinary technician- specializing in radiology (she can run a CT) & surgical client care .

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Pepper is  a member of the Association for Gravestone Studies, the American Anthropological Association, the New York State Cemetery Conservation, and Save Our Cemeteries.

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Disclaimer: All work on the following pages is available for licensing, to license photographs or imagery from JR Pepper please email girlduality82@gmail.com. NONE of the images on this page are to be sold, or used in any publication, website or media without expressed written permission of JR Pepper. 

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