Ernest Lindner was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1897. During World War I, he served with the Austrian Army. After the war, he briefly studied architecture, then joined the family manufacturing firm, and later started his own business. After his business failed, he emigrated to Canada in 1926. He became a farm labourer for a short time, then moved to Saskatoon where he worked at various jobs and took art classes. In 1926, he began to teach art at the Saskatoon Technical Collegiate where he stayed until his retirement in 1962. In 1959, he received a Canada Council Grant and went to Europe to study at the Academy for Applied Arts in Vienna. He loved the North and built a cabin at Emma Lake where he spent his summers painting the landscape. Active in the local and national art communities, he was a member of many organizations, including the Federation of Canadian Artists of which he was a founding member, and the Society of Canadian Painters. He died in Saskatoon in 1988.
