A graduate of Princeton University, where he studied architecture, Kopf turned to furniture making because he had grown to like wood carving and sculpture while an undergraduate. He was drawn to the idea of designing and creating his own object without having to rely on a team of workmen. After seeing the work of the studio furniture maker Richard Scott Newman and talking with him, Kopf moved to Rochester, New york, to work, and then began to apprentice for Wendell Castle in 1974.

After two years Kopf went out on his own, contemplating how he would develop a signature look in his work. While helping Castle build stack laminated work, he noted the great waste of wood and began to develop an interest in taking scraps of veneers an making marquetry jewelry boxes, the latter being his bread and butter work that he sold at craft shops and fairs. He moved to East Hampton Massachusetts, in 1976 and continued this line of work, but in 1983 he took a ten day trip to Italy with scholars of Italian intarsia work and discovered the the European tradition of wood pictures.

This experience, and a 1988 national Endowment for the Arts Craftsman's Fellowship that allowed him to study at the Ecole Boulle in Paris, dramatically raised the level of his pictorial work. At present, he is the preeminent marquetry specialist in america and has recently produced a DVD on marquetry.