American realist painter and print maker Tully Filomus was born in Bessarabia in 1903 and emigrated with his parents to Philadelphia in 1913. He studied with Henry McCarter at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and moved to New York in 1930, finding employment at an art agency where he met and became friendly with Willem de Kooning.

In 1937, he joined the faculty of the American Artists School, and in 1938 became a member of the Cooper Union faculty. Filmus exhibited at numerous venues including the Whitney Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and The Brooklyn Museum. He died at his summer home in Becket, Massachusetts.