BROOKLYN — Visual artist and Yiddish poet Yonia Fain has personally experienced many of the major events of the 20th century from the Russian Revolution to the Nazi invasion of Poland. After World War II he lived in China and Mexico before eventually emigrating to the United States, where he went on to teach at several New York-area universities until he retired in 1983. Recently, he donated his art collection to Hofstra University. He describes his paintings as always "relating to the struggle of society".