Jonty Hurwitz was born in Johannesburg, South Africa the son of the hotelier, Selwin Hurwitz, and the teacher, Marcia, née Berger. He spent his early life living in small hotels in rural towns in South Africa. Hurwitz studied electrical engineering sciences, with the focus on signal processing, at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg from 1989 to 1983. He then worked as a research assistant in the working group of Michael Inggs at the University of Cape Town and published a work on pattern recognition in radar. Hurlitz creates sculptures via 3D printing in catoptric (mirrored) or oblique (perspective) anamorphosis which are computed using an algorithm which is based on the mathematical constant, pi. In 2014, in collaboration with the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology and the Weizmann Institute, he created the smallest of three-dimensional representations of the human form using multi-photon lithography and photogrammetry. The world's smallest sculpture: Documentation of the work, recorded by CNN International, has been viewed by 120 million people worldwide.