Will Kurtz was born in Flint, Michigan and received his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Michigan State University in 1981. He practiced as a landscape architect for 25 years, throughout the United States and Canada. It wasn’t until he was in his mid thirties that he began creating art as a self-taught artist. Eventually his passion for art superseded landscape architecture and he moved to New York at the age of 50 to attend graduate school at the New York Academy of Art. After graduating with an MFA he was selected to remain and do a one-year fellowship. His work is in many prominent collections around the world.