Richard Sagrits was born in 1910. He dropped out of high school and entered the State School of Industrial Art, where one of its leaders was Günter Reindorf.
He began his artistic path at the Pallas School in 1930, where N. Trijka and A. Vabbe were his directors. It was Nikolai Triik who convinced him to take up art more seriously. During his life he held several exhibitions in Moscow and Rome.
After graduating from Pallas, he worked as a freelance artist for some time, drawing illustrations for children’s books, designing covers and dabbled in graphics. Together with Elmar Kits and Evald Okas, he participated in the painting of the Estonian National Theatre, working in the genre of social realism. He also worked as an inspector of the People’s Commissar of Fine Arts in the Estonian SSR.
During the war he moved to Russia. In 1947, together with other Estonian painters and graphic artists, he founded the Union of Estonian Artists.
In 1954, the artist arrived in the Crimea, where in just a year he painted about fifty sketches and paintings. He liked the Crimean bays, beach rocks and street landscapes. Then he went to Karelia together with Elmar Kitz, from where he returned with a collection of paintings.
Many of his works are kept in museums and private collections. The paintings of the Estonian artist are also presented in the Rios Art Gallery.