Michel Fingesten was born in Buczkowitz in the Austrian Silesia and at the age of sixteen, enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna along with Oskar Kokoschka. He travelled to America 1902-06 then on to Australia before returning to Europe in 1907. He undertook studies in Munich with Franz von Stuck and on to Berlin in 1913 where he focused on the etching technique for book illustration. He was the most prolific graphic designer of book plates in the 20th. century.