Siegfried F. Aram was born in Wurttemburg, Germany, in 1891. Originally a lawyer, he later became a partner in the Ehrhardt Galleries in Berlin. He had to leave Nazi Germany, arriving in the United States in 1934. In 1935 he established Aram-Ehrhardt Galleries in New York, changing the name to S.F. Aram, Inc., in 1937.