Richard Ziegler was born on May 3, 1891 in Pforzheim. He attended the Gymnasium then went to Great Britain for a year. After he returned to Germany, Ziegler studied philology in Geneva, Greifswald, and Heidelberg. He received his doctorate in 1919. Though art played no deciding role in his studies, he decided to become a painter after his studies. Ziegler produced book illustrations, woodcuts, and oil paintings, settling in Berlin as a professional artist in 1925. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he left Germany. Ziegler lived on the island of Korcula in Croatia until 1937. He attempted to dealtwith the political events in Germany in three series of monotypes. He lived in England from 1937 until the end of the war and went to Spain in 1963, where he produced his late expressive-realistic work. In his last years, Richard Ziegler returned to his hometown of Pforzheim. He died there on February 23, 1992, at the age of 101.