Master of Art Brut, Michel Nedjar was born in 1947 in the Val d'Oise to a Jewish family marked by war and the holocaust. His father, born in Algiers, settled in Paris in 1921 as a tailor.

At home, he tinkered on a sewing machine doll clothes for his sisters. During the Second World War, a large part of his family fell victim to Nazi oppression. In 1960, he became aware of the magnitude of the Holocaust.