Joseph Kurhajec was born in Prague, Czeckoslovakia in 1938 and emigrated with his family to Racine, Wisconsin the following year. He received a BS in Art Education in 1961, and an MA in Fine Arts in 1962 from the University of Wisconsin.

Moving to New York in 1963, he assisted Seymour Lipton in the Lincoln Center project, taught at Cornell University and wasselected one of "Ten Independents" for a group show at the Guggenheim in 1972.

He received a CAPS grant from the New York State Council of the Arts in 1974 and his sculptures have been exhibited at the Storm King Art Center, New York, the Treadwell Museum of Arts, New York and many galleries in Rome, Italy and France where he spends several months a year.