In 1904-1907 he studied at the Kazan art school, in 1908 at the Moscow School of painting, sculpture and architecture. From 1910 to 1912 was a student at the private Studio of M. Bernstein in St. Petersburg. In the autumn of 1919, made a trip to China. In 1921, he taught in VKhUTEMAS. In 1922 he, together with E. Korovay went to the Crimea in Simferopol, where in 1923 he moved to Tashkent. In Tashkent he worked in the theater of Opera and ballet, Newspapers, and taught. In 1927 he was one of the organizers of the artists ' group “Masters of New East”. In 1936, he was arrested and sentenced to 5 years in prison and three years of deprivation of rights. Kurzina accused in a hostile attitude to the Soviet government, the statement of terrorist intentions against Stalin, antisovetskaya agitation. The artist acknowledged the "formalistic" distorting Soviet reality, the artist deliberately portrays the Soviet man is ugly.
Punishment the artist served on the Kolyma. In late 1945, Kurzin arrived in Bukhara . In 1948, for unauthorized departure to Tashkent Kurzina arrested again presenting the same charges of anti-Soviet activity and exiled to the Krasnoyarsk region. In 1957 he died.
1888-1957 Mikhail Ivanovich Kurzin was born in 1888 in Barnaul. Art education has received in the Kazan school. Since 1908 he studied at the Moscow school of painting, sculpture and architecture in the class of K. Korovin. In 1916 he was mobilized to the front. After the war, becoming an active member of the Altai art society in Barnaul. In 1919 the artist traveled to China,the return of which was performed in the technique of avtoreferati the series of works "Chinese theatre".In the early 1920-ies he taught in VKhUTEMAS materials technology, and also worked with Mayakovsky in the Windows of ROSTOV.It was he who taught GROWTH tehnike of Avtoreferat. In 1923, the artist goes on a long trip through the cities of the Crimea, the Caucasus and Central Asia, which will be completed in 1926 in Tashkent. In 1927 Kurzin is part of the creative group "Masters of New East", and in 1929 became Chairman of the Association of workers struggle in Tashkent. One who worked closely with Korzinin, often became the object of his sudden open expression, the wizard did not recognize compromises. No wonder he was the first Association of "Masters of New East" was arrested in 1936 and exiled to Siberia, where he had the opportunity to work. After the liberation in 1946, Mikhail Kurzin was sent to exile in Bukhara, without the right to visit Tashkent. In 1946 he was admitted to the Union of Soviet artists of Uzbekistan, but two years later was arrested and exiled to Siberia for another eight years. The pretext for his arrest this time was the unauthorized arrival of the artist in Tashkent. Mikhail Ivanovich Kurzin died on 1 may 1957.