Multitalented artist Clarence Holbrook Carter was born in 1904 in Portsmouth, Ohio, across the river from Kentucky. One of the most impactful experiences of his youth was the extensive regional flooding in 1913. Carter relocated in 1923 to Cleveland, where he enrolled at the Cleveland School of Art under the mentorship of painters Henry Keller and Paul Travis. Carter's breakthrough came when he painted The Flood during his time in art school, catching the eye of William Millikin, the director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. After graduating in 1927, Millikin helped arrange for Carter to study with prominent artist Hans Hofmann in Capri, Italy. While abroad, Carter began to paint more and sell his work, which allowed him to travel throughout Europe and North Africa.

Upon his return to Cleveland, Carter taught at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Carter's success in regional exhibitions, particularly The May Show, established him as a distinguished artist in the Midwest. Throughout the 1930s, Carter gained acclaim for his moving paintings of rural America and the challenges of the Great Depression. Under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project, Carter fulfilled various mural commissions and also acted as regional superintendent. In 1938, he expanded his influence by joining the faculty at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Technical Institute. Carter subsequently worked for Alcoa Steamship Company, painting many scenes of South America and the Caribbean that were used in national magazine advertising campaigns. In 1949, Carter was elected into the esteemed National Academy of Design.

By the 1950s, works by Carter were already included in the collections of a range of prestigious institutions, such as Harvard University's Fogg Museum as well as the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Eclectic and flexible in terms of his aesthetic, Carter opted to shift his style in a decidedly Surrealist direction in the 1960s, producing symbolic and abstract compositions that left an indelible mark on American art. From his Over and Above series, with large animals peering over ledges, to fantasy landscapes, with ethereal, egg-like forms suspended amid idealized architecture, Carter continued to push the boundaries of representational art. In 1972, he won the Cleveland Arts Prize for the Visual Arts. While Carter died in 2000 at the age of ninety-six, he left behind a substantial artistic legacy and is today considered by many the most accomplished artist from Cleveland.