Meet Bob

Art has played a leading role in the life of Bob Lettieri ’56 P’81, who served on the executive committee of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, chaired Citizens for the Arts in Pennsylvania, and was a board member of the Everhart Museum in his hometown of Scranton.

As a teen, Bob aspired to a career as a painter, and rediscovering a portrait he made as a student of Head Master Allan V. Heely in 1955 got him thinking.

“I came across the painting and I was kind of pleased with myself,” says Bob, who lives in his childhood home – the place where he stashed the Heely portrait nearly 70 years ago. “The more I looked at it, I was going to start up again.”

Bob chose the gentlemanly Heely as a subject because of his admiration for the head. “He was an elegant guy, and he used to wear beautiful tweed coats, and he inspired me, sartorially,” he says, chuckling. So, what did Heely think of Bob’s work? “I don’t know if he actually ever saw it,” he admits. “Maybe I was a little sheepish about showing it to him.”