Lionel Samson Reiss (January 29, 1894 – April 16, 1988)[1] was a Polish-American Jewish painter born in Jaroslaw, Poland (then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire),[2] and grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where he studied commercial art.
As immigrants to the United States, Reiss’ parents joined the ranks of other Eastern European Jews who were fleeing their native countries at the start of the 20th century.
[4] Reiss worked as a commercial artist for newspapers, publishers, and a motion picture company.
In 1919 Reiss temporarily left the United States to travel to the aforementioned regions, and recorded the everyday life that he encountered in the ghettos.
In his last book, A World of Twilight, published in 1972, with text by Isaac Bashevis Singer,[2] Reiss presented a portrait of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.