Jerome Myers

Jerome Myers was born into an impoverished family in 1867 and left school at the age of 12 for work in a cork factory. As a young man, Myers took night classes at the Cooper Union and the Art Student's League in New York City, his home from 1885 until his death in 1940. Throughout his career Myers painted the life of the immigrants in manhattan's lower East Side. No stranger to poverty, the artist admired these peope for their spirit and hardiness and painted their lives with an affection and optimism rarely found in other paintings of crowded tenements. Myer's style is fresh, direct and broad with very little detail.

Jerome Myers was one of the Ashcan Realists, so called because of their common, "unrefined", urban themes. Artists in the Telfair collection who formed the core of this movement ("The Eight") headed by Robert Henri, were: George Bellows, George Luks, John Sloan, Ernest Lawson, Arthur B. Davies, and Jerome Myers.