François or Ferencz Gall was born in Transylvania, then part of the Austro Hungarian Empire, to Hungarian parents in 1912. At the age of 18, in 1930 he was studying at the Academy in Rome and receiving a bursary from the Hungarian Government to do so. By 1936 Gall has settled in Paris. Here his enthusiasm for the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists became evident. The subject matter of his paintings was influenced by the works of Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) and by those of 20th century artists such as Henri Lebasque (1865-1937). Gall specialised in painting young women, ballet dancers, nudes and in addition Parisian street scenes. He exhibited at the Paris Salon and in 1863 was awarded the Francis Smith Prize.

Gall’s work was and remains enormously popular in France and particularly in the United States where the artist had an enormous following. He died in 1987 at the age of seventy-seven.