Painter, printmaker, and graphic artist Richard Janthur was born in Zerbst, Germany on April 12, 1883. He studied at the Breslau Art School in the early 1910s before settling in Berlin in 1908. Soon thereafter he began exhibiting regularly throughout Berlin as a member of the Berlin Secession, and in 1911 he caught the attention of arts patron Harry Kessler who funded a study abroad trip to Greece for Janthur. 

The following year, Janthus and fellow artists Ludwig Meidner and Jakob Steinhardt founded the Expressionist art group "Die Patheticians" in the manner of the "New Pathos" poetry movement. Together they held a group show at the important art gallery 'Sturm' and in 1919 they were involved with the founding of the Berlin Working Council for Art. Though he primarily worked as a painter at the beginning of his career, by the 1920s Nathus had turned more toward printmaking with a focus on book illustration. His work was published in Der Sturm and a volume of erotic lithographs, accompanying a collection of Indian tales called Panchatantra, was published by the Fritz Gurliutt Verlag's in their series Der Venuswagen (Vol. III). By the mid 1920s he had illustrated over fifteen literary works. 

In 1940 he took up painting once more, and he continued to work until his death in 1956. Of his ouevre, very few of his paintings or drawings are extant. Most of his work is preserved in his published lithographs.