Lawrence Beall Smith

Lawrence Beall Smith, painter, lithographer, illustrator and stone sculptor, was born in Washington, D.C. in 1909. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, and at the University of Chicago, receiving a Ph.D. degree in 1931. He also studied in Boston and Gloucester, Massachusetts with Ernest Thurn, Charles Hopkinson and Harold Zimmerman. His reputation as an artist was secured by a one-man show in 1941 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Smith had begun to exhibit his work in 1935.

Smith was commissioned by Abbott Laboratories in 1944 to cover the Medical Corps in Europe during World War II. He served as an artist at the D-Day landings of Allied troops on the Normandy beaches, as well as painting posters supporting the sale of War Bonds.

After the War, in the 1940s, he founded the Katonah Gallery (now the Katonah Museum), in Westchester County, New York. He exhibited there for many years, as well as at the National Academy of Design in New York City, and in other major exhibitions. He also illustrated books such as Robin Hood, in 1954, and Tom Jones, in 1964.

His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; University of Chicago; University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; and the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. The art collections of the United States Air Force and United States Navy, both in Washington, D.C., hold examples of Beall's paintings and prints depicting the War.

Associated American Artists in New York City, commissioned original graphic art from artists, and published Smith's lithographs over a span of thirty years, from 1940-1970, often with children as their subject.

Lawrence Beall Smith died in Cross River, New York in 1995.

Source:

http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/smith_lawrence_beall_the_chase.htm

http://www.history.navy.mil/ac/artist/s/smithlb/smithlb1.htm