Jerome Myers

American (1867-1940)

A painter, etcher and illustrator, Jerome Myers studied at the Art Students League in New York City with George de Brush as well as at the Cooper Union in the late 1880s. He was an early urban realist painter who began painting scenes of lower class life in 1887, years before the Ashcan School had its impact on American art. Myers depicted people enjoying the New York markets, children at play, the circus and people at the carnival. His works had a light-hearted quality to them and his view of the lower class lifestyle was often idealized, although he did depict the people in his works with dignity.

Myers was one a member of the National Academy, the American Society of Painters and Guilders and the Woodstock Art Association. He exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Academy of Design where he won many prizes and medals. He had his first one-man show in 1908, and also exhibited in the 1913 Armory Show in New York. Myer’s paintings are held in the collections of the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Newark Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art amongst others.