1933 - 2001. Lived and worked in Calgary, AB.

John K. Esler was born in Pilot Mound, Manitoba, and attended the University of Manitoba’s School of Art, graduating with degrees in education and fine arts before joining the faculty of the University of Calgary in 1968, where he stayed until his retirement in the 1980s. He became an influential figure in Canadian printmaking, specializing in intaglio works, and helped to raise the profile of printmaking in the province and throughout Canada by expanding the printmaking department at the University of Calgary. His work often experimented with texture and unconventional materials, adopting a somewhat Dadaist approach in his use of discarded, flattened objects such as a television chassis run through the printing press to create the works in his “Relics of the Twentieth Century” series.