Raphael Gleitsmann, born in 1910, spent most of his life in Akron, Ohio. He was a self-taught artist whose only "formal" training came from Miss Calvin at Central High School and Paul Travis at the Cleveland School of Art. Although he favored oil painting, he also worked in watercolor, photography and other media. The artist's earlier works were idealized presentations of life in Middle America during the Great Depression in the realistic style.

Gleitsmann served as a combat engineer in World War II from 1943-1945. While in Europe he created quaint sketches that also recorded the devastation caused by the war. He was wounded at the Rhine River, received the Purple Heart and returned to Akron. Everything he saw and experienced at war...