Grigory Glyukman was born on October 25, 1898, in the Vitebsk province and taught himself to draw until the age of nineteen. In 1917, he moved to Moscow and enrolled in the School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, where his mentor was the itinerant artist Abram Arkhipov. He studied for three years and in 1920 moved to Berlin, never to return.

In Berlin, Glyukman joined the association 'Vereteno' and designed the collection of Andrei Bely's 'Poems about Russia.' Then he spent nine months in Florence, where he studied Italian art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and mastered multilayer oil painting on a wooden base. This technique defined his entire subsequent style. In 1924, the artist settled in Paris and changed his surname to Glyukman.

His early years in Paris were focused on book graphics: 'Florentine Nights' by Heine, 'Manon Lescaut' by Abbé Prévost for the La Pleiade publishing house. From the mid-1920s, he almost entirely devoted himself to painting. Portraits, street scenes, ballet backdrops, but above all - nudes, which brought him true fame. Critics found Venetian color and lessons from Watteau, Ingres, and Degas in his canvases: an old school painted by the hand of a 20th-century man.
Recognition came quickly. In 1928, the French government purchased his work for the Luxembourg Museum, and in 1937 he received a gold medal at the International Exhibition in Paris. In Paris, Glyukman befriended the violinist Jascha Heifetz, who amassed the largest collection of his paintings.

In June 1941, after the occupation, the artist moved to southern France and then to the USA. From 1945, he lived in Los Angeles and received American citizenship in 1954. The magazine American Artist called him a 'modern old master.' He died on July 23, 1973. His widow Anna established a fund to assist young artists who emigrated from the USSR - emigration helping emigration.