Margery Ryerson was a pupil of Charles Hawthorne at the Cape School of Art in Provincetown, MA and with Ashcan artist Robert Henri at the Art Students League in New York. For a twenty-year period (c.1920-40) Miss Ryerson taught art in New York settlement houses in exchange for the privilege of painting and drawing the children in their care. It was during this period that the artist created what many scholars regard as her greatest achievement, a series of paintings and fine prints depicting children of the underclass and immigrants with such respect and sensitivity that they found universal appeal and demand.

 

 In 1923 her book on the teachings of Henri, The Art Spirit, was published by Lippincott Company of Philadelphia and has been in continuous publication since. During her lifetime she was represented by Chapellier, Macbeth and Grand Central Art Galleries in New York. She also was a member of the National Academy of Design.