Ernst Riethman

Ernst Riethman was born in 1895 in Taegerwilen, Switzerland, where he studied for three years at the Academy of Art in Basel and for two years at the Professional Industrial School of Interior Decorating and Painting. He moved with his wife Clara to Alberta in 1924, where he lived in Magrath and Raymond before settling in Lethbridge in 1947. He became an active member of regional arts organizations, including the Lethbridge Sketch Club with which he served as president in 1952 and 1956. Courses from visiting instructors such as H.G. Glyde and Harry Wohlfarth from the University of Alberta contributed to his development and he became good friends with Group of Seven painter A.Y. Jackson who visited Lethbridge several times during his cross-Canada excursions. The two would often paint together and Riethman's art took on much of the stylistic approach of Group of Seven art. Riethman became an art-teacher himself, organizing and teaching classes at sketch clubs in Raymond, Magrath, Cardston and Lethbridge as well as giving Saturday morning children's art lessons in his home studio.

Ernst Riethman earned his living as a home decorator, a profession that he worked at with enthusiasm, considering it to be another valuable aspect of his artistic expression. He was a compulsive painter, working constantly on his art in any free time that he had, often creating watercolour sketches on holiday trips, for example, making quick studies of landscape subjects that he would later work into larger compositions in his studio at home. It was a work regime that he shared with the Group of Seven painters and – as with that of the members of the Group – his out-of-door sketches often expressed greater vitality and beauty than his later, full-sized versions.