Born November 30, 1909 in Vitebsk, Russia; died April 4, 2000 in the White Plains Hospital in Westchester, N.Y., after suffering an aortic aneurysm.

As a young man, Breinin studied under the painter Uri Penn and later, at the Vitebsk Academy of Art. His family emigrated to Rochelle, IL where they lived for one year before moving to Chicago, IL. He attended public school until economic circumstances forced him to see employment at various jobs including commercial lithography, theatre poster painting, and running a hotel elevator. He continued his art studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was commissioned by the Section of Fine Arts of the Public Buildings Administration to paint a mural for the USPO at Wilmette, IL. He had a one-man exhibition in New York at the Downtown Gallery in 1939. His works are in the Fogg Museum of Art; Cambridge, the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the San Francisco Museum of Art and the Zanesville, OH Art Institute.

Studied: Chicago Academy of Fine Arts; Uri Penn; Academy of Art, Vitebsk.

Exhibited: Art Institute of Chicago 1940 (prize); AV (prize). Work: MMA; MOMA; MPG; AIC; SFMA; Zanesville, OH Art Institute; USPO Wilmette, IL. Registered IL WPA artist -AAA Reel DC73.