Brian Shapiro was born in 1942 in Rochester, New York. He began formal art training at age eight at the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery. In 1960 he won the citywide art scholarship to the Rochester Institute of Technology where he received an A.A.S. degree. In 1962 he was awarded a scholarship to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where in 1964 he graduated with honors, earning a B.F.A., in sculpture followed by a M.F.A. in painting in 1967.

Shapiro taught for several years before moving to rural Wisconsin where he painted landscapes and farm life as well as designing and building four homes.

In 1980 Shapiro moved to Hollywood, where he created over 200 paintings depicting movie making which were shown by the Smithsonian Institution, in museums across the United States, and by the U.S. State Department in Europe. He was the first person to have a one-person show of paintings at the Motion Picture Academy. In Santa Barbara, California and Rochester, New York, he was commissioned by over 200 businesses to create "at work" drawings and paintings. In 1993 he began a series of paintings focusing on Israel (which he exhibited through the Israeli Consulate) and on the American Jewish Renaissance. In 2002 he began a new series of paintings on New York City.