Imber’s colleagues said the artist insisted on continuing to teach and create even after his diagnosis.

“I can hear him now, ‘Yup just wanna keep working,’” Pepper said, adding that when his illness prevented him from using his hands, he continued painting by holding a paintbrush between his teeth.

Siebel wrote that the portraits Imber made while ill were “passionate” and “heart-stoppingly intimate.”

“Ironically [the paintings] are lively and full of movement—embodying the very mobility the ALS took away from him,” she wrote.

A documentary about Imber’s response to ALS will be screened this Saturday at the Somerville Theatre. Imber’s work is currently on display at the Danforth Art Museum in an installation that will end with a memorial service on May 18.

—Staff writer Ivan B. K. Levingston can be reached at Ivan.Levingston@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @IvanLevingston.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: April 30, 2014

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Heddi Siebel's relationship with Imber. In fact, she was a colleague of Imber's at Harvard.