William Cyopik was born in Welland in 1921. As a child, Cyopik took an early interest in visual art, crediting his public school teacher for planting the seed that would become his life's pursuit. As a teen, he studied commercial design, later at the Doon School of Fine Arts he studied under Frederick Varley and Arthur Lismer (both of the Group of Seven). He also studied for a time in San Miguel De Allende, Mexico and the Albright Art School in Buffalo, New York.