Maurice Becker, painter, political cartoonist and social reformer, was born in 1889 either in Gorky or Niznij Novgorod, in Russia. His family came to the United States in 1892, to New York City. After high school, Becker worked in a clothing factory. He studied with Ash Can School artist Robert Henri in 1908, and exhibited in the famous 1913 Armory Show in New York City when he was only twenty-four years of age.

At the Armory show, Becker showed a drawing of a dog's head, sketched in charcoal on a sheet of newspaper. But he became known for black and white drawings expressing his intense feelings about what he saw as injustices in America, and with the advent of World War I, his strong anti-war position. These drawings appeared in le...