Chris Ritter was born in Iola, Kansas in 1908. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Kansas and then went on to study at Columbia University and the Art Student’s League in New York City. He studied with George Grosz. He was an art instructor at Hunter College and Cornell University and had several one-man shows in New York. He also exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute.Ritter exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum in 1939, 1941, 1943, and 1945 and at the Corcoran Gallery Biennial in 1939. He also exhibited at the Denver Art Museum in 1938, for which he won a prize. His other exhibitions include The Oakland Art Gallery and Museum, Boston Art Festival, Philadelphia, and Mississippi.During WWII, he was an illustrator for the Air Force while in the army. He was the director of the Laurel Gallery in New York until 1951.He eventually moved to Oguinquit, Maine full time after spending several summers there at the art colony. He designed the current Ogunquit Art Museum and his own home and studio. Upon his death in 1976, the paintings in his estate were left to his widow Jane.Ritter is represented in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Worcester Art Museum, the British Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.