Ernest David Roth

La Doma, Florence.

c. 1917

Ernest David Roth was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1879 and, at the age of five, immigrated with his parents to the United States. He studied painting at the National Academy of Design under George Maynard and Edgar Ward and the New York School of Art under F. Luis Mora. Roth was a regular contributor to shows at the National Academy and the Pennsylvania Academy. In his painting and etching, Roth concentrated on simple architectural views, rarely including people in his scenes. He has received awards from the Salmagundi Club in 1911, 1912, 1915, 1917 and 1918, from the Chicago Society of Etchers in 1914 and 1936, from the Society of American Etchers in 1935 and from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1930. He received a silver medal for etching and a bronze medal for painting at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915. Roth was a master printer as well as etcher, and he printed etchings for other artists, notably John Sloan. He also printed William Blake's large etching of The Pilgrimage to Canterbury. He lived and worked in Manhattan, and subsequently moved to West Redding, Connecticut.