Russian
Mennonite Watercolourist
Artist Peter Goetz was 11
years old when he came to Kitchener, Ontario with his Mennonite family
who immigrated from Slavgorod, Russia, 1929. His father, whose Russian
roots are traced to the reign of Catherine the Great (1729-96), first worked
as a labourer helping to construct Westmount Golf and Country Club. He
later became a greenskeeper there while Peter attended the local high school,
then Waterloo College, now the University of Waterloo, and became, 1947,
a student of the famed Group of Seven artist, F.H. Varley. Since 1957,
Mr. Goetz has mounted an annual show of his work which has been included
in exhibitions by the Royal Canadian Academy, Ontario Society of Artists,
Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts,
the National Gallery, Ottawa, and the Western Art League. Since 1957, Peter
Goetz has established solo shows annually. He is a Fellow, International
Institute, Arts and Letters; International Platform Association; Centro
Studie Scambi International, Rome; and a member of the Canadian and Ontario
Society of Artists, as well as the Canadian Society, Painters in Watercolour.
[Photo, courtesy Peter Goetz]