Paul Brach (1924-2007) was born and raised in New York City. In 1941 he attended the University of Iowa, studying painting with Grant Wood, and a year and a half later was drafted into the military. After three years service in Europe
including combat, he returned to Iowa to finish his education on the GI Bill, and at this time studied printmaking with the influential Argentine artist Mauricio Lasansky.
At Iowa Brach met the artist Miriam Schapiro, and they married in 1946. They left Iowa in 1950 and after a brief period when Brach taught at the University of Missouri, they moved back to New York in 1951. Concentrating more on painting at this time, as well as teaching art and art history, Brach did not make prints again until the late 1960s. In 1967 he moved to California to become chairman of the art department at UC San Diego (before moving on to be dean of CalArts in Los Angeles) and he produced a series of lithographs at Tamarind Lithography Workshop the same year, returning to print further editions there in the 1980s.