His mother was Gisela Schlesinger, and his father was Shimon Kolb who came from the famous Teitelbaum family from Satmar (Hasidic dynasty).
His teachers included Heinrich Flynn and Max Dvořák, who had a profound influence on his spiritual development and ideology.
He was married to Edith Meller and they had one daughter, Shoshanna Hasson-Kolb, who edited her father's recollections of his time in Bergen Belsen.
Kolb understood that unlike literature, theater and music, the visual arts did not assume a central position in Israel, and worked to raise the level.
[citation needed] As director of the Tel Aviv Museum, he emphasized the uniqueness of Israeli painting[peacock prose] and insisted that it have a connection to Jewish art.
[peacock prose][5] The "Kolb Foundation" was established with donations of works by 59 artists, and is managed by the Tel Aviv Museum.