Edmund Lewandowski was born in 1914 in Milwaukee and is best known for paintings that illustrate the beauty and energy of American Industrialism. Educated at the Layton School of Art in the early 1930s, his urban Milwaukee upbringing had a profound impact on his artistic development and he became a standout in the hard-edged Precisionist movement. In the late 1930s, he was invited to be represented by the Downtown Gallery in New York City, but chose to remain in Milwaukee and began painting murals for the WPA Federal Art Project, creating a number of post office murals throughout the Midwest. He served in the U. S. Air Force making maps and concealments during World War II. His teaching career took him to institutions throughout the United States, including Florida State University, Layton School of Art, and Winthrop University in South Carolina. He began to experiment with mosaic murals after his introduction to the medium while on a trip to Italy in 1953. While director of the Layton School of Art, he designed his first mosaic, for Marquette University’s Brooks Memorial Union. He produced eight mosaic murals between 1953 and 1979, including murals for St. Patrick’s Church in Menasha; Allen-Bradley in Milwaukee; two murals for the Flint Institute of Arts in Flint, Michigan; Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina; Employers Mutual of Wausau; and four interior courtyard murals for the War Memorial Center in Milwaukee in the late 1970s.