Painter and printmaker Mark Tumin was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) on September 16, 1946. He graduated from the Leningrad Art School, now known as the Nicholas Roerich St. Petersburg Art School, then studied at the Leningrad Art College, now the St. Petersburg Art and Industry Academy.

Tumin credited teachers such as Alexander Zaitsev, Stanislav Mosevich, and Mark Altshuller as major influencers of his early artistic path.Beginning in 1969 he apprenticed with post-Revolutionary painter Grigory Yakovlevich Dlugach, who from the late 1930s used the Hermitage Museum as his “silent school” to discreetly pursue and teach non Soviet-sanctioned styles and subject matter. This mentorship proved fateful, as they eventually formed the Artistic Association Hermitage with six other Leningrad-based artists, who, following the fall of the Soviet Union, would travel to the UK and US to exhibit.

Tumin was a regular participant of annual group exhibitions in the Leningrad Union of Artists of the Russian Federation, later renamed the St. Petersburg Union of Artists, and at the St. Petersburg Manege. He taught throughout his life, in Russia prior to the Soviet collapse, including at the Peterof Art School, and from 1993 to 1998 in more than 30 English and American educational institutions, including universities, schools and studios.

In 2001 he became President of the St. Petersburg Foundation for Educational Programs, and taught at the Institute of Composition, St. Petersburg, and the St. Petersburg Institute of Television, Business and Design until 2011. He founded and taught at the Creative Laboratory of Analytical Studies in Fine Art at the Al-Gallery.

He died on June 25, 2013.