Ernest David Roth, painter and printmaker, was born on 17 January 1879 in Stuttgart, Germany and at the age of five years old, his parents immigrated to the United States.

Roth was best known for his paintings and etchings of scenes of New York, Italy (especially Venice), and Spain. He studied painting at the National Academy of Design under Edgar Ward and George Maynard and at the New York School of Art under F. Luis Mora, and he studied etching techniques with James David Smillie.

He as a member of the Salmagundi Club; American Water Color Society; New York Water Color Club; Brooklyn Society of Etchers; Chicago Society of Etchers; Print Makers Society of California; Life Member of the National Arts Club; elected Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1920, and a National Academician in 1928. His work garnered numerous prizes during his career including but not limited to a Silver Medal in etching and a Bronze Medal in painting at the Panama Pacific International Exposition; the Samuel T. Shaw Prizes for etching at the Salmagundi Club in 1911, 1912, and 1916; the Saltus Landscape Prize for painting at the Salmagundi Club in 1915; 1^st Honorable Mention for painting at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1916; 1^st Prize at the Chicago Society of Etchers, 1915; Logan Medals, Chicago Society of Etchers in 1917 and 1918; Bryan Prize for Best American Print at the annual exhibition of the Print Makers Society of California in 1922; and the Isador Prize in drawing from Salmagundi Club in 1923.

Roth is represented in the permanent collections of the Butler Institute of American Art, Ohio; Carnegie Art Museum; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; the New York Public Library; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester; the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Mobile Museum of Art, Alabama; the National Academy of Design, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Missouri; Newark Public Library; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Brooklyn Museum, Bibliothèque nationale de France; Victoria and Albert Museum in London; and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Ernest David Roth lived and worked in Manhattan but eventually moved to West Redding, Connecticut.  He died on 20 August 1964, at the age of eight-five years old, while visiting friends in Cambridge, New York.