David Garfinkiel was born in Radom (Poland) in 1902 into a family of artists.
He is the youngest in a 9 children family. His father, « an observing Jewish man », is stone carver.

Painter from its early age, David Garfinkiel followed the teaching of Fine-Arts in Krakow, then entered the School of Fine-Arts in Warsaw.

In 1932 he arrives in Paris, attracted as many others by the aura of the « School de Paris » which includes artists from all around the world.

Rachel Koskas writes in « Communauté Nouvelle » n°113, p.75:
« If young Jewis artists came from East Europe to Paris, it is to run away from persecutions and lack of prospect. Paris, then called « painters chief city » in the first decades of the century, was a strong attractive force; all was there : teachers, great painters (Picasso, Matisse…), great masters (in Louvre), subjects (la Provence de Cézanne),  galleries, art dealers and… liberty ».

In Paris David Garfinkiel  attends two renowned studio : the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and  the Académie Julian. He discovers the Parisian artistic avant-garde in the famous café of Montparnasse, the Rotonde and the Dôme. He becomes full member of the « Salon des Indépendants ». Soon he exhibits in the Parisian shows:  Salon d’Automne, Salon des Indépendants…
But the artist’s life is not easy, and to survive he  works from 1934 as a photographer and touches up photographs for the  Harcourt Studio which has just been created.

The war broke out. Volunteer for the French army in 1939 Garfinkiel is naturalized French in 1939 (and shortly thenafter de-naturalized as a Jew).
He takes refuge first in Brive la Gaillarde in Corrèze with his wife married in 1934 and his daughter; then he moves to Lyon where a son was born in 1942, a disabled boy. His painting is valued and an exhibition entitled « Provinces de France » will be inaugurated in 1942; although Garfinkiel lives hidden, he continues to paint and even to show his paintings. To support his family he makes in the same time many patterns for the silk trade of Lyon, decorations for umbrellas…

The war broke out. Volunteer for the French army in 1939 Garfinkiel is naturalized French in 1939 (and shortly thenafter de-naturalized as a Jew). He takes refuge first in Brive la Gaillarde in Corrèze with his wife married in 1934 and his daughter; then he moves to Lyon where a son was born in 1942, a disabled boy. His painting is valued and an exhibition entitled « Provinces de France » will be inaugurated in 1942; although Garfinkiel lives hidden, he continues to paint and even to show his paintings. To support his family he makes in the same time many patterns for the silk trade of Lyon, decorations for umbrellas…

After the Liberation, the Garfinkiel family which has a third child born in 1945 moves back to Paris in 1946. The war toll is tragic: the eight brothers and sisters of the painter died, and fourteen out of his fifteen nephews and nieces. His studio has been looted and all of his work before the war has disappeared.

But life goes on. Garfinkiel resumes photography and opens a photo studio in Belleville, in the eleventh district of Paris, multicolored and multiethnic. « Studio David » serves as a livelihood but above all as a painting studio, where he can indulge his passion for painting in a cultural and popular environment in which he draws his inspiration.

He paints and draws without a break, using all media, canvas, plywood, paper, cardboard, all tools, brush, knife, pencil, pastel, indian ink, felt-tip…

As soon as Garfinkiel gets back to Paris, his individuals exhibitions follow the collective exhibitions. In the years after the war he participates in numerous exhibitions for charity, for children, for former deportees..…But he also shows his paintings again on the walls of the salon des Indépendants, the salon d’Automne…

In 1958 at the time of his exhibition at the Galerie Zak, the City of Paris purchases his work « Exodus ». The following year, the Ministry of education awards him the prize for artistic encouragement.

He takes part in many exhibitions, in Versailles, in Taverny where he receives an award in 1960, in Deauville where he is finalist in the third international painting exhibition in 1961, in Vanves where he obtains the price of painting of the city in 1962….

In 1961, after a long stay in Israel where two exhibitions of his works are organised, he brings back a big variety of drawings and new inspiration.

Alongside these activities, he teaches at Saint-Michel home where his son is boarder among other mentally disabled children and adults.

In 1966 Garfinkiel is awarded the silver medal of the European Academy of Arts. The same year he is named « Chevalier de l’Ordre culturel et philanthropique de France » and receives the Vermeil medal of the association Le Génie Français.

For many years he was involved in the Association of Jewish painters and sculptors of France where he was vice-president.

In 1970 the painter David Garfinkiel dies, the illness having taken him from us very quickly.