Ealy Mays was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. He studied chemistry and biology, and once intended to become a physician — until Guadalajara, Mexico, and the work of Rufino Tamayo changed the course of his life. From there, his path led to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine — where his work was included in a group exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum — and eventually to Paris, where he has lived and painted for decades."

Mays comes from a family with roots in both the Black American and Native American experience — a heritage that has shaped his sense of identity, without ever narrowing it. First and foremost, he considers himself an American artist: one whose work speaks to shared human experience rather than a single community's story.

He moved to Paris in the late 1990s in search of, in his own words, "an intellectual environment to think, to breathe, and to paint." He found it — becoming a long-term resident resident at the historic Cité internationale des arts, and building a body of work that moves freely between the intimate and the political, the playful and the historical. At Skowhegan, the painter Jacob Lawrence — who became both mentor and friend — described him simply as a "pure painter": someone with the instinct and the nerve to never follow the crowd.

That instinct still defines how Mays works today. He paints without a filter — what he sees, what he remembers, what belongs in the frame — and it shows in the range of his subjects, from a quiet street scene to sharper cultural and political commentary, always rendered with the same honesty.

His work is part of the permanent collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. — Chocolate Ex-Pats, a gift of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson.

Studio Niebieski has worked closely with Ealy Mays for over a decade, managing his sales, exhibitions, and the stories behind each piece.

Education
BSc in Chemistry and Biology, Wiley College, Marshall, Texas
Studied medicine at Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara School of Medicine (UAG), Mexico
Fellowship, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine

Collections
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. — Chocolate Ex-Pats, gift of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson
Georgia Museum of Art
Hammonds House Museum