Raphael Senseman is a well known, highly listed, prolific, and well collected American painter, watercolor and gouache artist who was born in Philadelphia in 1870 in the years following the Civil War. He was the nephew of the famous nineteenth century painter, William Henry Lippincott, and it is believed he studied art techniques under his uncle. Raphael Senseman began regularly exhibiting his art around the turn of the century and was particularly active in Camden and Collingswood New Jersey, and Washington, DC. Primarily a landscape artists, Raphael Senseman also created a number of cityscapes and figure studies. His finest work, however, is generally regarded as his landscapes, particularly in his subtle use of form, texture and color.

  A self-taught artist, He was, in his demeanor and artistic tastes, a man totally of the Victorian Age. Senseman lived and worked in a Collingswood that was then still surrounded by large expanses of wild woodlands and streams -- his favorite subject matter. His moody paintings of seascapes and bucolic landscapes (that have long since disappeared beneath the parking lots and strip malls throughout Camden County) are now his most collected and valuable works.

 Senseman supported himself and his five children by painting watercolor scenes four days a week and spending two days selling his paintings door to door in the surrounding towns. His methodology of door-to-door sales may sound quaintly strange to many modern-day readers who don't know that in the early 20th century art reproductions were not widely available. It was fashionable for even the most modest home to have one or two pieces of original art work on the walls.

Senseman, who never drove a car or had a bank account during his entire life, died in 1966 at the age of 96. His  paintings and watercolors are held in many private and public collections throughout the world.