Roy Gates Perham Jr. 

1916-1995

Perham was born in Paterson, N.J., April 8, 1916, he lived in Hasbrouck Heights his entire life.

Perham attended public schools in Hasbrouck Heights.  After studying art privately there under the late I.B. Beales, a commercial artist, he attended Grand Central Art School in New York for one year.

Perham with other artists formed an art study club in New York and the group engaged Frank G. Reilly, a former teacher at the Grand Central School and Frank Vincent Dumond an important New York artist, to instruct them in many phases of painting.  Two years later, Mr. Perham began portraiture professionally. 

He exhibited portraits at the Newcomb-Macklin Gallery and others in New York, and was given one-man shows in many New Jersey communities, including Paterson, Montclair, and Newark. In February, 1940, he won a prize for his portrait “Beth,” which was voted most popular among approximately 75 paintings at an exhibit of the Ridgewood (New Jersey) Art Association.

Perham also painted a number of religious pictures for churches in New Jersey, among them a mural, twelve feet by fourteen feet, entitled Christ in Gethsemane, for the First Reformed Church in Hasbrouck Heights.

He painted numerous famous people such as senator and presidential candidate Edmund Muskie. 

In 1967 he exhibited at the Salmagundi Club, New York, a painting titled "Spring Lettuce."