August 1, 1883

B. F. Dolbin (August 1, 1883 to March 31, 1971) was born in Vienna and died in New York City.  This 20th century journey happened to so many: an artist of some success, Dolbin had to flee the Nazis and his career did not recover.

His German Wikipedia article translates his job in the arts as a "press artist." I am not quite sure what that means, but we know that he illustrated books. Here is a drawing of a feline he did for the book Katzen (1927) by Axel Eggebrecht.



It seems likely that Michael Joseph, the British publisher, saw Dolbin's work, for when Joseph needed, for a book he wrote himself, an illustrator, Dolbin was the artist. Dolbin's work was used for the first edition (1930) of Cat's Company. Here is a drawing for this book:



Dolbin's work is brave, fresh, and faithful.