Lawrence Beall Smith, painter, lithographer, illustrator and sculptor, was born in Washington D.C. in 1909. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois and the University of Chicago, receiving his Ph.D degree in 1931. The first exhibition of his work occurred in 1935 and by 1941 he had ascended to a national platform when the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York gave him a one-man exhibition.

During World War II, Smith served as a war artist on numerous fronts. He created war posters and documented naval aviation operations. Following the war, Smith added children book illustration to his long list of accomplishments.

Smith had a long-standing relationship with Associated American Artists in New York City which published a number of his lithographs over a span of thirty years from 1940-1970.

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, in Washington, D.C., hold examples of his paintings and prints depicting the War.