Yosl Bergner was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria in 1920 and grew up in Warsaw, Poland. In 1937, fleeing antisemitism the family moved to Australia and he studied in the National Gallery School in Melbourne, where he . socialised with a wide circle of local artists. Bergner left Australia in 1948, travelling in Paris, Montreal and New York City. Two years later he settled in Safed, Israel, moving to Tel Aviv in 1957. He is best-known as a painter of allegorical still lifes and also designed scenery and costumes for the Yiddish and Hebrew theatres. Yosl Bergner died in Tel Aviv, Israel on 18 January 2017.