József Klein was born on 30 January 1896 in Cermei, Arad County, Austro-Hungary, and he died in Auschwitz in 1945. József Klein studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest between 1916 and 1919 under Károly Ferenczy and István Réti, developing early connections to the Hungarian modernist movement. József Klein settled in the Baia Mare artists’ colony in the early 1920s, where he worked alongside leading painters of the Nagybánya school and became closely associated with its modernist direction.

Between 1925 and 1927, József Klein lived in Paris, where he absorbed the diverse artistic influences of the city. His works from this period reflect stylistic and thematic elements shaped by modern European art, including the impact of Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, and Maurice Utrillo. József Klein continued to exhibit in Baia Mare, Cluj, Oradea, Timi?oara, and Bucharest, producing paintings, drawings, watercolors, and linocuts that combined expressionism, cubism, constructivism, and neoclassical tendencies.

In the 1930s, József Klein lived and worked in Bucharest before returning to Baia Mare. His later works included seasonal cycles and socially engaged compositions, reflecting his interest in everyday life and the working classes. As a Jewish artist, József Klein was deported in June 1944 and perished in Auschwitz in 1945. His legacy remains central to the Baia Mare school and to early twentieth-century Central European modernism.