About Jerry Prettyman

Jerry Prettyman

Jerry Prettyman’s art negotiates the fluidity, urgency and rhythmic beauty of jazz and blues music and the cultural and social dimensions of the global African diaspora. As an artist, Jerry has never been locked into a single painting style; instead, much like the musicians who inspire and influence him, he is a vehicle through which multifaceted artistic expressions emerge.

Jerry, a native of Chicago based in the Baltimore area, studied Fine Art at Morgan State University, and Applied Art & Design at Catonsville Community College and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). In addition to his long career as a fine artist, he worked as a graphic designer and illustrator for nearly four decades, including design for several book covers and work as an editorial artist for The Baltimore Sun. Jerry has been a guest speaker on numerous radio and television programs, delivered lectures and presentations of his works to private groups, schools and organizations, and served as a guest juror and curator for multiple exhibits.

His paintings have been exhibited in galleries, museums and public buildings around the country, including: the Smith/Mason Gallery and Museum in Washington, D.C., MICA, the Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park & Museum in Baltimore, the Banneker Douglas Museum in Annapolis, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the JVC Jazz Exhibition in New York, The Jazz Gallery in New York, Duke University, the New Harlem Renaissance Exhibition, Indianapolis Art Center, the Charles O. Taylor Visual Art Center in Hampton, Va., the BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Md., and the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Md., to name just a few.

In 1999, Jerry curated Kromah Gallery Revisited, a retrospective of Black artists who exhibited at the legendary Kromah Gallery, the pivotal community gallery space for Black visual and performing artists in Maryland, and a meeting space for local gatherings dedicated to developing arts patronage, education and appreciation.

Jerry’s works also reside in the collections of private collectors and institutions around the world, including the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company of Los Angeles, Mr. Joseph Haller of the Jesuits Residents of Georgetown University, the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture at the University of Maryland College Park, and of Mr. Paul Pierce, 2008 Most Valuable Player of the NBA World Champion Boston Celtics. His piece “Monk’s Mood” resides at the bandstand in NEA Jazzmaster Todd Barkan’s iconic Baltimore jazz club Keystone Korner.

Jerry has numerous commissions to his credit, with one of the most significant emerging after an exhaustive nationwide search by the firm of Joseph A. Wetzel Associates, Inc. of Boston to create and design an 18-foot Italian tile floor mural honoring legendary tenor saxophonist Lester “Prez” Young for the Jazz Plaza at the Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Mo.

Jerry’s legacy of artistic devotion continues through his children and grandchildren—visual and performing artists, creative writers, scholars, and filmmakers. Jerry and five of his seven grandchildren were featured in a public art discussion, “Artistic Journey,” at Narragansett House on Martha’s Vineyard in 2021. In 2024, Jerry was a featured solo artist in the exhibition “Blues Invasion” curated by the Featherstone Center for the Arts at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society. That same year, Jerry’s art was featured in Creatively Black Baltimore, the region’s largest showcase of works by Black artists. Additionally, Jerry was among a distinguished handful of artists, gallerists, and collectors in a panel discussion at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture in September ’24. 

Among the highlights in his esteemed career, Jerry received the Artist Icon Award at the Baltimore Met Gala in September 2024 for his “intentional and continued efforts to empower and strengthen the arts industry via transformational human and economic investment.”