William Beckman was born in 1942 in Maynard, Minnesota. He received a BA from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and an MA and MFA from the University of Iowa. He moved to New York City in 1969, rose to prominence in the mid-1970s and has had over 20 solo exhibitions.

His work is included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC; the Yale University Art Gallery in Connecticut; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC; and The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pennsylvania, among others.