Cleveland-born Sol Bauer carved soap stone as a young boy, but by the time he reached high school, he preferred the medium of wood. Along with his interest in art, he sought a career in engineer ing and attended the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, graduating in 1920. In the early 1920s, while working as a civil engineer, he studied sculpture with Walter Sinz in evening classes at the Cleveland School of Art. Bauer established his own engineering firm in 1926. Continuing to produce wood sculpture in his spare time, he exhibited in May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art (1928–56) and in an annuals at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia (1933–58). His sculptures appeared in solo exhibitions at Cleveland’s Potter-Mellen Company (1929) and the Union Trust Arcade (1938). In the early 1940s he worked as a part-time instructor of sculpture at the Jewish Council for Educational Alliance. Bauer retired from civil engineering in 1969. "Transformations in Cleveland Art" (CMA, 1996), p. 222