Mark Heming (nee Morris Heimerdinger, Jr.) was born at home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 1907.
He was the youngest child of Morris Heimerdinger and Sarah Liebman, whose family owned and operated The Liebmann Breweries in Brooklyn which  produced Rheingold Beer.
 
It was on the streets of his neighborhood, and later as a teenager and young adult on vacations abroad, that Heming first began to log into his memory bank the faces that were to be revealed many years later in his work.
 
Heming’s work reflects his fascination with the human face and the human condition.  He never used models, and his works are not portraits of specific individuals, but rather composite expressions of humanity.
As a child, Heming was obsessed by faces and recalled being admonished by his mother to stop staring at people while out in public. 
During his adulthood he was profoundly affected by the faces of destitute people standing on bread lines during The Great Depression in New York City.
 
Heming was completely self- taught and never took an art class during his lifetime.  He was a modest, private man, and created his art without ever showing it publicly.  Only his close friends and family were aware of it, and it always caused him great anxiety to be present when it was being viewed.
 
In spite of his obscurity, Heming was extremely prolific, and continued his artistic life until his death at age 92 in 1999 in Sag Harbor, New York.