Biography

Ida Picker was born in Manhattan in 1945. She was an enthusiastic student with a natural talent for the fine arts. Her musical talent was apparent early on when she mastered the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto by the age of fifteen. Picker graduated Cum Laude from Harvard University in 1967 with a degree in English Literature. During her time at Harvard, she wrote and produced several plays, including “The Garden” (in which she starred) at the Loeb Drama Center, now home of American Repertory Theater, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After Harvard, Picker pursued a career in journalism, starting with news, features and investigative work at her local newspaper, The Madison Eagle, then writing major investigative pieces for Institutional Investor Magazine and, later, for Bloomberg News. Picker later taught English Literature and Journalism at Morristown-Beard School, in New Jersey, where she advised the school newspaper, which won five gold medalist certificates from Columbia School of Journalism during her tenure.

Turning to her natural talent in the visual arts, she enrolled at the Art Student’s League of NYC in 2008, studying life drawing and watercolor, also studying painting with her mother, the artist Henriette Simon Picker, and portrait painting with artist Janet Boltax, at Montclair Art Museum. Retiring from teaching in 2016, Picker is now a full time artist.