William Meyerowitz was born in Ukraine and immigrated to the United States in 1908. He is best known as an American painter and printmaker. Meyerowitz began his studies at the National Academy of Design and won honorable mention in the 1917 Prix de Rome. As a student at the National Academy of Design he learned the technique of classical painting and printmaking. He also helped innovate new color-etching techniques.

Meyerowitz toured Europe and became influenced by the modernist movement and styles taking place throughout the Paris, Spain and Italy. He soon abandoned realism for a more improvised expressionistic style, for which he would gain acclaim. Using a flattened, cubist style, he was known to paint musicians, dancers, artists, landscapes, still-lifes, and Jewish life, and dock workers in New York’s Lower East Side. His worked has been likened to Cezanne’s. From 1930 to 1940 he taught at the Settlement House in New York, and continued to paint throughout the rest of his career.