Painter, printmaker, and sculptor Bernhard Jager was born in Munich on June 17, 1935. Jager first pursued biology from 1956 to 1957, a subject that influenced much of his art throughout his career, before switching to art studies at the Werkkunstschule Offenbach. After graduation in 1961 he co-founded the Gulliver-Presse with fellow lithographer Thomas Bayrle, beginning a secondary career as a publisher until the year 1966. One of the first books they published was by Ernst Jandl (Hosi-Anna!, 1965) and was illustrated with lithographs by both Bayrle and Jager.

Jager continued to illustrate books after the press came to an end. In 1970, 1984 and 1994 books illustrated by Jager were awarded the prize "Die schonsten Bucher des Jahres" by the Stiftung Buchkunst. In 2007 he designed thirty book covers for Jorges Juis Broges' "The Library of Babel" published by the Gutenberg Book Guild. 

From 1983 to 1984 he was a guest lecturer at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, and from 1985 onwards he headed their evening school until 2000. In 1990 he held a visiting professorship at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. Solo shows include: Klingspor Museum, Offenbach am Main (1968); Galerie Brusberg, Hanover (1972); AAA Associated American Artists, new York (1975); Mannheim Art Association, Mannheim (1977); Gunzenhauser Gallery, Munich (1985); Kunstverein Wetzlar, Wetzlar (1988); City Museum Ludwigshafen (1994); Klingspor Museum (2007); retrosepctive of paintings, drawings, woodcuts, and book art at the Speyer City Gallery (2016).

Group exhibitions include: "Writing and Picture," Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1963); Exhibition of Art Prize for Youth, Baden-Baden Gallery (1963); Documenta III, Kassel (1964); "Signals, Manifestos, Protests," Kunsthalle Recklinghausen (1965); "Graphics '70, Germany," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1970); "German Graphic Design in the 20th Century," Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (1995); "The Art of Printing With Stones," Klingspor Museum (1996); "Masterpieces of Lithography," Klingspor Museum (2017).

Bernhard Jager is a member of the Darmstadt Secession. In 1998 he won the Prize of Heitland Foundation. Works in public collections (selection): Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Rose Art Museum, Brunswick; San Francisco Museum of Art; Kunsthalle Nurnberg; Klingspor Museum, Offenbach