The Mission Tent

Jerome Myers

1906 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

Born in Virginia, Myers settled permanently in New York at the age of nineteen. While working as a commercial artist, he attended classes at the Cooper Union and the Art Students League. He later came under the influence of Robert Henri, whose realist philosophy inspired a number of young artists. Myers was not a formal member of Henri’s so-called Ashcan group, but gravitated to similar subject matter—namely, the urban spectacle. One of the first New York realists to paint the Eastern European and Italian immigrant neighborhoods of the Lower East Side, Myers made the subject his own, observing that whereas "others saw ugliness and degradation there . . . I saw poetry and beauty."

Artist

Jerome Myers

Date

1906

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1912