Issachar Ber Rybach (1897-1935) was born in Ukraine and later became the most important contributor to the Jewish art movement in Russia. Rybach was considered as an artist whose genius bore comparison only with that of Chagall. After studying art in his home town of Elisabethgrad, he went to Kiew in 1911 and Moscow in 1918.
He first worked as a Cubist painter and then approached Jewish subject matter in the 1920's. While in Berlin in 1921 he published his book of lithographs of the Shtetl when his cubism was less pure or analytic.
He went to Moscow to work for the Jewish Theatre in 1924 and produced some drawings relating to some Jewish Agricultural colonies in Ukraine in 1925. In 1926 he settled in Paris and adopted a style of painterly realism different from his earlier experiments.
He took part in many exhibitions there, the last one being held a few days before his death in December 1935. His works are worth between US $ 6,000 and 70,000.