Born in the Ukraine, Jacob Kramer moved with his family to England and settled in Leeds in 1900. He attended Leeds School of Art from 1907 to 1910, and entered the Slade School in 1913. While he was in London, he exhibited with the New English Art Club, and was elected a member of the London Group in 1915. The same year, he was invited to exhibit with the Vorticists, whose aesthetic theories made a profound impact upon his own work, in which he explored colour and form as a means of expression of the spiritual. In the early 1920s, Kramer resettled in Leeds and became a charismatic and central figure in the cultural life of the city. He founded the Yorkshire Luncheon Club in 1931, and was President of the Leeds Fine Art Club from 1959. He undertook many local commissions, mainly portraits, and taught at Bradford and Leeds Colleges of Art.