Born in Šiauliai to a creative Jewish family. He was the second of five children. His older brother Viktoras, at the age of nineteen, went to the United States of America, New York, where he became a famous engraver and medal maker - in 1909 he created the US one-cent coin. In 1895, the entire Brenner family followed in his footsteps and moved to New York.
Brenner's penchant for art emerged in his youth. Under the tutelage of his brother Viktor, he gradually emerged as a talented artist. He graduated from the Art Students League in New York, which was particularly popular among Litvak artists. The Art Students League was a forge for new ideas. Artists who had returned from Europe and were familiar with modern art worked there as teachers. These circumstances influenced the formation of Michaelis's artistic worldview.
Encouraged by his teacher August Saint-Gaudens, Michaelis left for Paris in 1901, where he continued to develop his artistic skills at the prestigious Parisian academies of fine arts, as well as diligently studying the works of other artists exhibited in museums and exhibitions. In 1909, he founded his own studio, which remained open until 1962.
In Paris, Michaelis was quickly noticed by the famous modernist writer Gertrude Stein. She admired his talent, posed for him and brought him into her art salon life, which was a gathering place for the best and most famous artists of the time - writers Ernest Hemingway and Francis Scott Fitzgerald, painters Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, and a host of other luminaries. He avoided publicity at all costs. He rarely allowed people interested in his work into his studio, and even less frequently exhibited or sold his works, which he had worked on long and painstakingly. Partly because he believed that art should be made for art's sake, but also because he was almost never satisfied with his work. Štein once called him "a sculptor who never finished anything".
According to art historian Vilma Gradinskaitė, Brenner's sculptures would have caused a sensation at exhibitions. He was a very modern and broad-minded artist. "His human figures or portraits are characterised by a highly expressive plasticity and emotionality. He has an excellent command of form and conveys the characters of the people he depicts, such as Gertrude Stein or the magician Alister Croulis. Michael Brenner's sculptures show every touch of the artist's hand and the progress of his work, which testifies to the sculptor's inner freedom, professionalism and talent."
