Paul Roeher Biography

Paul Roeher

American

1878-1965

Biography

Printer Paul Roeher was born in Germany on June 14, 1878. He arrived in New York about 1902, where he jumped ship. He worked and lived in New York, where he studied lithography, and New Jersey until 1910, when he moved to Akron, Ohio. About 1912 he left Ohio's cold winters to move to Los Angeles, California.

In Los Angeles Roeher began to work for a large commercial printer, T.V. Allen Company, creating Christmas cards using engraving and lithography. After his marriage to Wilhelmina Becker he went out on his own, opening a studio in Los Angeles at 2nd and Main, where his main client was the Los Angeles Shopping News and then moved to Encinitas in San Diego County in the early 1940s where he built a house and studio. Roeher became a U.S. citizen around 1942. During this period Roeher printed work for artists at night, doing commercial work during the day. He printed for Richard Day and many of the Southern California artists, preceding Linton Kistler's printing in Los Angeles.

He also printed for printmakers Velma Adams, Malcolm Cameron, Mildred Coughlin, Thomas Craig, Eula Long, Warren Newcombe, James Patrick, Marius Rocl, Alfred Rudolph and Harold Swartz, some of these as publications for Jake Zeitlen's Bookstore in Los Angeles.

After breaking his hip after a fall, he was transferred to Torrance hospital where he died on March 4, 1965.