Leo Steinberg was born in Russia in 1920 and lived in Berlin and London before emigrating to the United States in 1938.

After studying at the Slade School of Art in London, he entered the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University in the mid-1950s (Ph.

Steinberg taught drawing and art history at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York from 1961 to 1975, and ended his teaching career as Benjamin Franklin Professor at the University of Pennsylvania (1975-1991).

His lectures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio School in New York, Columbia University, and elsewhere attracted a broad audience of artists, art lovers and scholars.