Peter Goetz

Goetz was born in Slavgorod, Russia in 1917 and his Mennonite family moved to the Kitchener-Waterloo area when he was eleven years old. His father, a labourer who helped construct the Westmount Golf and Country Club, became the greens keeper while Goetz attended high school at Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute. He moved onto Waterloo College, now Wilfrid Laurier University.

 

He took night courses at the Doon School of Fine Art and studied with the famed Group of Seven artist, Frederick Varley. He took an accounting job during the Depression because he couldn’t survive on his paintings alone. Goetz has said that the day he quit his accounting job was the happiest day of his life.

 

Goetz’s style is impressionism and is distinguished by the intensity of colour and contrasts. “What is bleak to some people is beautiful and paintable to me,” he said.

 

Goetz, who sold only originals of his work, painted scenes from many countries. He has been on an around-the-world trip in addition to separate visits to Russia, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, California and the Far East.  Some of his local works include everything from the former Seagram Museum to the Waterloo train station and the Waterloo Hotel.

 

In 2000, Goetz donated a series of twenty-eight of his watercolour paintings to the Waterloo City Hall. He had previously donated forty-five paintings in 1987.