[3] Gottlieb was born in Drohobycz (then in Galicia in Austrian Poland, now in western Ukraine) to a wealthy, Yiddish and Polish-speaking Orthodox Jewish family.

He lived and worked in Vienna for the next two years and produced paintings with biblical themes, as well as illustrations for Friedrich Bruckmann Publishing of Munich.

At a banquet in his residence at Via Gaeta, Gottlieb met with Matejko, who convinced him to come back to Kraków as one of his best students,[3] to work on a series of monumental paintings including scenes from the history of the Jews in Poland.

[5] Gottlieb won a gold medal at the Munich art competition for his painting, Shylock and Jessica (1876), portraying a scene from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

Gottlieb planned to marry Lola Rosengarten, but when he heard about Rosenfeld's marriage, he knowingly exposed himself to the elements, dying of complications from a cold and sore throat.