Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Herman Cherry was a painter, muralist, teacher, and sculptor of mobiles and constructions. He began his career in Philadelphia; lived in California from 1924 to 1945; and Woodstock, New York from 1944 to 1950 with an interval in Paris. Then he returned to the New York area for the remainder of his life.
In Los Angeles, he studied at the Otis Art Institute and under Stanton MacDonald-Wright, and Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. He also gave art lessons in Hollywood.
Travels included Mexico, where he studied murals; France and Italy to gather materials on contemporary painters and sculptors for future lectures; and travels in Brazil, Peru, Greece and Spain. In 1947 to 1947, he was also the Chairman of the First and Second National Art Conference of Woodstock, New York.
Cherry's work can be found in numerous museums and corporate and private collections including Deloitte, Haskins & Sells in the World Trade Center in New York; Frieda Lawrence in Taos, New Mexico; Western Electric in Lisle, Illinois; Willem de Kooning, East Hampton, New York; General Electric Collection in Fairfield, Connecticut; and IBM in Boston, Massachusetts.