Louis Mayer was the prototypical first generation, Wisconsin-born artist. He began his studies with Wisconsin immigrant artists, Richard Lorenz and Otto von Ernst at the Wisconsin Art Institute. Like many others of his generation, he continued his studies in Germany at the Weimar Art School and then went on to the Munich Academy of Fine Arts where he encountered fellow Milwaukeean Carl von Marr. In 1897, he became a student at the Academie Julien in Paris.

When he returned to Milwaukee, he began teaching at the Wisconsin School of Art. In 1901 he was instrumental in the formation and the first president of the Society of Milwaukee Artists; in 1913 they became the Wisconsin Painters and Sculptors.

While still in Milwaukee, he wrote art reviews for both English and German newspapers in the city. While he was an accomplished painter, he began sculpting when he moved from Milwaukee to Fishkill, New York in 1913. Later, he moved to Carmel, California where among his many sculpture portraits was one of his friends, Albert Schweitzer.