Julius John Pommer was born on February 22, 1895. His father who was a restaurateur from Vienna who moved to the United States in 1893 to work at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and he settled in San Francisco a couple years later. Julius John Pommer was born in a West Coast home, and at a young age he quit school to earn wages. After suffering a spinal injury Pommer pursued art when he was inspired by the sketches he did of his fellow patients.

In 1924 Pommer studied at the California School of Fine Arts under Otis Oldfield. In 1926, Pommer and Oldfield founded the modern Gallery art cooperative. As a member of the School of Committee of the CSFA, a leader of the San Francisco Art Association, and director of the California Society of Etchers he became a leading art figure in San Francisco in the 1930s.

Pommer worked for the San Francisco Federal Art Project from November 1935 to November 1939, mostly working on intaglio processes.

He exhibited at the San Francisco Modern Gallery in 1926; Oakland Art Gallery in 1932; Gump’s in 1935; and San Francisco Modern Art Museum in 1935.

Pommer died in San Francisco on October 14, 1945.