Jacob Kramer was born in 1892 in Ukraine. Following the political unrest in Eastern Europe, Jacob Kramer and his family left their home there, settling in the Jewish community of Leeds in 1900. The son of a court painter, Kramer felt unsettled in Leeds and in 1902 he left home at the age of only ten taking on jobs throughout the North of England and spending six months at sea. During this period, he attended occasional art classes at Manchester School of Art, but his first formal training was at Leeds School of Art from 1908-11, where he received a scholarship to study full time. Here he also earned the patronage of Sir Michael Sadler. From 1913-14 he studied at the Slade School of Art where he befriended other leading artists of the day such as Augustus John and David Bomberg. In 1915 Kramer held a solo exhibition with Mathews and Brooke, Bradford and was invited to exhibit with the Vorticists in London. Following this he began to build up his reputation as a leading Yorkshire artist with shows in Yorkshire and London and in 1959 he was elected as president of Leeds Fine Arts Club. 1960 saw a retrospective of his works at Leeds City Art Gallery and six years after his death the City of Leeds Branch College of Art was renamed the Jacob Kramer College of Art. Exhibitions of his work have also been held at the Parkin Gallery in 1973 and Belgrave Gallery in 1990. Kramer stated "The degree of expression in a work of art is the measure of its greatness. A spiritual discernment is more essential than the reproduction of the obvious. If the expression is guided by very deep emotion, I have invariably noticed that I produce a replica of the subject of reality. In fact the extreme development of this tendency imperceptibly merges into an expression of palpabilities."