Paul Raphael Meltsner was born in New York City in 1905. A native New Yorker, Meltsner attended Flushing High School and graduated in 1922. He became closely associated with the WPA, enjoying the support given artists during the Great Depression and in 1938 a New York City gallery offered him a one-man exhibition. Meltsner is well known for his his industrial scenes depicting urban scenes and in the mid 1930’s he expanded his genre and began to paint portraits of actors and performers including Carmen Miranda, Lynn Fontanne, Martha Graham, Dorothy Stickney and Gertrude Lawrence. His work is included in major museum collections across the country including The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; The Museum of Modern Art, New York and The Whitney Museum of American Art, NewYork. His work was also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago. Meltsner died in 1966.
