Imre Reiner trained in Hungary as a sculptor. In 1920 he moved to Germany, where he studied graphic art under Ernst Schneidler at the Akademie für Bildende Kunst in Stuttgart. He has lived in Switzerland from 1931 and illustrated, mainly with wood engravings, works of classical and contemporary authors. He was also a painter and exhibited  in Germany, Paris, Philadelphia, Chicago, São Paulo and at the Triennale in Milan.