Marcel Janco was born in Romania in 1895. Janco studied Architecture at Polytechnique in Zurich and painting with the painter Iser-Josif. In 1922 Marcel Janco returned to his native Romania, where he made his mark as a painter, theoretician and architect. Janco was one of the founders of Dada, an avant-garde movement composed by poets, painters and philosophers. In 1941 he moved to the land, which was to become the nation of Israel in 1948. It was here that Janco was one of the founders of the New Horizons Group, organized in 1948.  In Israel, Janco painted idyllic watercolor and oil depictions of Safed and Tiberias and was captivated by the exotic sights of the Orient.
In 1953 on the ruins of an abandoned Arab village, Marcel Janco established the artists’ village known as Ein Hod, which now boasts the Janco Dada Museum..  In 1967 he was awarded the Israel Prize for Painting. In the last years of his life he worked together with his friends to erect the Janco Dada Museum. Janco died ten months after the inauguration of the museum in 1984.