Trained both as an architect and painter, Morton Schamberg lived a short but productive life. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and devoted his career to both painting and photography. He was a student of William Merritt Chase and accompanied him abroad on several trips, working primarily in Spain, Holland and France. He settled in Paris for three years where he was exposed to modernists Picasso, Cezanne, and Matisse.

Returning to Philadelphia, he did portraiture and assembled Philadelphia's first modern art exhibitions. He also exhibited at the Armory Show and with the Society of Independent Artists. Photographer Alfred Stieglitz urged him to extend his art to photography, and Schamberg became the first to use a silver paper screen for a background to achieve many subtle effects of light and shade. He was fascinated by machines and in much of his work showed machine abstractions in a cubist style.