Constant Mayer studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and received additional training in the studio of Léon Cogniet. He worked in Paris until 1857 when he emigrated to the United States. He established his studio in New York, and apparently enjoyed prompt success.
Mayer specialized in genre, not unexpectedly with a certain European accent. His subjects were sentimental, often pathetic, or religious. He also did compositions drawn from popular American literature, notably from Whittier's and Longfellow's narrative poetry. His The Song of the Shirt of 1875, derived from a melancholy poem by Thomas Hood, received particular critical approval. Mayer's works of this type also showed his French training in being dominated by figures, generally rendered at life-size. His subjects were made well-known--and a source of income--by distribution in chromolithograph reproductions. Mayer also excelled at portraiture, which probably was the mainstay of his practice. He seems often to have been a choice for commissioned portraits of important personages; two of his most distinguished sitters were Generals Philip Sheridan, and Ulysses S. Grant.
Mayer's first appearance in a National Academy annual exhibition in 1863, with a work entitled Sisters of Cherity [sic] removing a Wounded Soldier from the Battle Field demonstrated Mayer's keen sense of the topical; in 1865 he contributed North and South--an Episode of the War. Mayer's major essay on the theme of the American Civil War was described in the June 1866 catalogue of premiums to be awarded by Chicago's Crosby Opera House Art Association as:
Constant Mayer's Celebrated Painting entitled "Recognition" valued at Five Thousand Dollars. A large Historical Work--the Story of a Battle-field. Size about 8 by 12 feet. An effective and touching episode of the late fearful struggle in our own country. One brother finds another dying, as night is gathering over the battle-field. They have joined different sides in the contest, and the dramatic power of the situation, with its tearful sublimity, is as forcibly as it is simply expressed. Such a painting as this must always stir our feelings with a throb of sympathy, while it melts us to pity and tenderness.
(Recognition is owned by the Seneca Falls, New York, Central School District. and unframed is six by eight feet in size.)
Although he became an American citizen, and was clearly considered an American artist by the New York press and public, Mayer, himself, kept his options open. He regularly sent paintings from New York to the Paris Salon exhibitions. His Femme iroquoise de l'Amérique du Nord shown in the Salon of 1869--a choice of subject which again demonstrates Mayer's responsiveness to popular taste, was such a success, that in August of that year he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. In December 1869 he auctioned the contents of his studio, nineteen paintings, in preparation for his "departure for Europe." Whether he intended to remain is not clear, however, he certainly was back in his Broadway studio, and represented in the Academy annual of 1871.
Mayer was in France for the summer of 1875, and may have made other visits. He was such a consistent participant in Academy annual exhibitions, that his absence from those of 1876 and 1877, suggests a possible absence from the country. Mayer's work was last seen in the Academy annual of 1894, and it is known he returned permanently to Paris the following year.
