Michel Schwartz, a renowned artist responsible for designing some of the Chabad movement’s most iconic imagery, passed away Friday, September 9. He was 85.

Schwartz was born in Catskill, NY in 1926. Showing talent as an artist at an early age, he was enrolled in the New York School of Art and Design. In 1941, when Schwartz was only 15 years old, he was recruited as an illustrator for “Talks and Tales,” a monthly children’s magazine published by the Chabad movement. Meeting with the future Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of blessed memory, then the son-in law-of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabby Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, and head of newly established Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, Chabad’s educational arm, Schwartz was tasked with designing a new section for the magazine. “Curiosity Corner,” the column consisted of a series of illustrations, illuminating various aspects of Jewish life and custom.

Schwartz would later recount for Tzivos Hashem, Chabad’s international Jewish children’s organization, that the Rebbe instructed him to style the column as “Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” a popular column in The New York Daily Mirror.

 “Illustration, in the Rebbe’s view,” Schwartz related, “was a key factor in translating to children the visual essence of the written word. Through pictures which would accompany the text, children would more easily relate to the information that the text was presenting.”

In 1944, Schwartz designed the emblem for the Rebbe’s Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch. The emblem, in contradistinction from those in vogue among Jewish organizations at the time, was avant garde in its design.

Though Schwartz later entered into various business ventures, he would continue to expand his artistic scope and style. Drawing from Jewish themes and lore, Schwartz would use micrography, a uniquely Jewish form of art that uses miniature Hebrew letters to form larger images. Perhaps Schwartz’s most complex work, entitled “When Moshiach Comes,” is comprised of 387,000 letters, forming quotes from Isaiah to Maimonides about the redemption of the Jewish people.

Rabbi Shraga Faivel Rimler, rabbi of the New Brighton Jewish Center, met Schwartz in his capacity as Director of Development at the National Council for the Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE). Though Schwartz was a self-financed artisan, working in the evenings, Rimler recalls him as a “charitable person, generously using his talents to beautify Jewish outreach.”

Working with NCFJE, Schwartz helped design the aesthetics and logo for Tzivos Hashem in the Fall of 1980. Schwartz would remain closely associated with the organization for the rest of his life.

Rabbi Sholom Paltiel, Chabad’s representative to Port Washington, worked with Schwartz over the past decade. Initially contacting Schwartz for art to use in an upcoming dinner, a Schwartz took an interest in Paltiel’s community and synagogue. Schwartz, Paltiel says, was “saturated with Judaism to the very core of his being.” Through his art, Schwartz sought to use “his passion to bring positive Jewish imagery to the world at large.”