George Raab, born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin on 26 February 1866, was the son of German immigrant parents, Christian Raab (1822-1880), a merchant, and his wife Charlotte Bode Raab (1822-1889).

In the year of his mother's death, Raab began studies under Richard Lorenz (1858-1915), director of the Wisconsin School of Design, who had done his studies in Weimar. Lorenz specialized in painting horses, panoramas, and scenes of the American West.

One may conclude that Raab was studying in Europe between 1891 and 1898, when his name did not appear in the Milwaukee city directories. He was, in fact, at the Weimar Art School under the Norwegian-born painter Carl Frithjof Smith (1859-1917) and reportedly in the Aca...