Bopp was born in Corry, Pennsylvania but largely reared in Louisville, Kentucky, except for an impressionable year spent living with a grandfather in rural Stony Creek, New York.

Bopp had early displayed artistic as well as musical and athletic ability, and in the hospital corps he was put to work designing invitations and party decorations.

"[1] A former student, who eventually renounced evangelical Christianity, nevertheless said of Bopp that he was "the first man I met who didn't use his intelligence to transform theology into a weapon.

"[4][5] According to Jeanet Dreskin, Bopp also emphasized spiritual symbolism with a "subtle interaction of color and the geometric construction of shape and space" that indicated the influence of Albers.

[6] According to James Mann, Bopp stressed "the contemplative, intellectual element in his work,"in one case basing a symbolic painting reflecting Platonic universals on Escape from Reason (1968) by Francis Schaeffer.

[2][9] In 2003 Emery Bopp was diagnosed with a form of Alzheimer's disease, but he continued to paint and held a final exhibition at Hampton III Gallery in November 2006.