Francis (Frank) Blackwell Mayer was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 27, 1827, the son of Charles Mayer (1795-1864) and Eliza Blackwell Mayer (1803-1885).
Frank Blackwell Mayer studied art in Baltimore with Alfred Jacob Miller and Ernest Fischer in the 1840s and in Paris with Charles Gleyre and Gustave Brion between 1864 and 1869, specializing in oil paintings and crayon drawings.