Painter and print maker Edwin Kaufman was born in Cleveland, and began his studies at the Council Educational Alliance. He graduated from Central High School, then well known for its art and design curriculum, and entered the Cleveland School of Art.

In 1929, he won the Agnes Gund European Traveling Scholarship, which funded his European studies the following year. He studied under Hans Hoffman in Munich and Heidelberg and Henry De Waroquier and Othon Friesz at the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere, in Paris.

Between 1926 and 1937, Kaufman exhibited regularly and extensively at the annual May Show at the Cleveland Museum of Art, receiving awards for his work on four separate occasions. In 1932 he exhibited his work at a one-man show of etchings, lithographs and drawings at the De Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco.

Kaufman found work as a commercial illustrator but appears to have derived much of his income from printmaking. During the 1930s Kaufman was active in the Cleveland Print Makers and also served as president of a short-lived print club, The International Print Guild, with its headquarters at 509 Fifth Avenue, which circulated a print a month by an international group of artists, including Sir D. Y. Cameron, Frank Brangwyn, Lucien Simon, Karl Hofer and such American artists as Adolf Dehn, Louis Lozowick, and Wanda Gag. Established in 1933, the organization lasted just a year before folding. He joined the New York branch of the WPA in 1935, for whom he produced etchings of New York, concentrating on the city’s bridges, harbors, and poorer working areas.

Edwin Kaufman, his wife, and their young son were killed in an automobile accident in Pennsylvania on their return trip home following a family visit in Cleveland.