Yohanan Simon was born in 1905 in Berlin, Germany and studied medicine for a year before enrolling at the art academy in Frankfurt, where he was taught by Max Beckman (the expressionist painter). In the late 1920s, he travelled to Spain and later to France, where he studied painting with Andre Derain (one of the founders of Fauvism). He worked in Paris on two magazines as a graphic designer. He emigrated to Palestine in 1936 and was a member of the Gan Schmuel kibbutz from 1937 until 1953 when he moved to Tel Aviv.  During the 1950s, he travelled extensively in South America, Europe and the USA. Influenced by his travels, his style became more abstract and his colours brighter and hotter. In the 1960s, he had solo exhibitions in Germany, the USA and Switzerland. Simon died in 1976.