Agam was born in Rishin LeZion (then Mandate Palestine) in 1928, son of a Rabbi and Kabbalist. His trained at the Bezalel School in Jerusalem, then in Zurich under Johannes Itten. In 1951, he moved to Paris, where he would hold his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Craven in 1953.

Agam's work is usually abstract, kinetic art, with movement, viewer participation and frequent use of light and sound. He is also know a type of print known as an Agamograph, which uses lenticular printing to present radically different images from varying viewing angles.

Agam is the highest-selling Israeli artist. He had a retrospective exhibit in Oaris at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in 1972, and at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1980, among others. His works are held in numerous museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.