Samuel Bookatz (October 3, 1910 - November 16, 2009) was a prolific painter who defied the demands of his blue collar, Orthodox Jewish upbringing to study art in the United States and Europe. Bookatz painted in a variety of styles: for commissions with presidential, military, political, and civic portraits; for murals during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Federal Art Project; for religious and secular frescoes; and mostly for his own vision. In his private art, he developed from a realistic style to impressionist paintings, later to figurative expressionist and to increasingly abstract expressionist themes.

Bookatz was the fourth of six children born in Philadelphia and soon moved to Cleveland with Russian immigrant parents who observed...