Painter, printmaker, and illustrator Jerome Eugene Kaplan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1920. He attended the Philadelphia College of Art and studied independently with artists Benton Spruance and Paul Froelich. He was a member of the Philadelphia Print CLub, the Society of American Graphic Artists, and Artists Equity. From 1948 to 1991 he taught at the Philadelphia College of Art. Among his the books he illustrated are: The Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard (1964); The Bucket Rider (1972); From a Housewife's Diary (1978); and Charlie in the House of Rue (1980), among others. 

Exhibitions include: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts annual, 1958; Fourth International Prints exhibition, Ljubjana, Yugoslavia, 1961; Philadelphia Print Club, 1970s; Premiere Biennale Internationale de l'Estampe - Epinal (France), 1971; National Society of American Graphic Artists, New York, 1979, among others. He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1961; a Tamarind Lithography Workshop scholarship, 1962; Mettie Marie Jones Visual Arts Fellowship, 1983; and the Richard Florsheim Art Fund Grant, 1993. 

Kapaln died in Pennsylvania in 2007.

Reference: Castagno, John: Jewish Artists: Signatures and Monograms. Lanham, MD, Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2010