Bernard Meninsky, the son of Jewish parents from the Ukraine, was born in Liverpool in 1891. He studied at the Liverpool School of Art and the Slade School of Art (1912-13). This was followed by a year in Florence with the artist, Gordon Craig.

Like many young men of Jewish descent, Bernard Meninsky joined the Royal Fusiliers in London. Three battalions of this mainly Jewish regiment fought with General Edmund Allenby in Palestine. In 1918 he was recruited as an official war artist and most of his paintings dealt with soldiers saying good-bye on railway stations.

After the Armistice Bernard Meninsky became a member of the London Art Group and taught at the Westminster School of Art and the City of Oxford Art School. Bernard Meninsky died in London in 1950.