After attending school in Stams, Joseph Schöpf was apprenticed to the Innsbruck painter Philipp Haller in 1755. Between 1758 and 1765 he spent time in Salzburg, Passau and Vienna before returning to Tyrol. Shortly afterwards, he became Martin Knoller's assistant and helped him with his numerous commissions for church frescoes. In 1775, when the two were in Milan, Schöpf received an imperial scholarship through Knoller, which enabled him to stay in Rome, where he remained until 1783. In Rome, he studied at the Accademia di San Luca and met the classicist artists Anton Raphael Mengs and Heinrich Füger. It was here that he created his first works, which he produced for aristocratic clients. Due to illness, Schöpf returned to Stams in 1783, where he remained privately connected to the Cistercian monastery, and subsequently created independent ceiling frescoes for churches in Bavaria and above all Tyrol. His marriage to Gertrud Schonner, whom he had married in 1806, ended just one year later with her death; Schöpf remained childless. He bequeathed his estate to Stams Abbey out of gratitude, as it was here that his talent was discovered and his training was organised.