Illustration to Y. L. Peretz’s A gilgul fun a nigun

Born in Stanislawów, Galicia (now Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine), Arthur Kolnik was a painter and printmaker best known for illustrating Yiddish poetry and other Jewish works. Kolnik studied at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków before serving in the Austrian army during World War I. After the war, he lived in Czernowitz, then part of Romania, but eventually moved to New York, where, in 1921, he exhibited his paintings alongside fellow artist and friend Reuven Rubin. Kolnik moved to Paris in 1931, where he worked primarily as an illustrator for fashion journals. In 1940, he and his family were interned at Récébédou. In 1968, Kolnik had a major exhibition at the Tel Aviv Art Museum.