David Kampmann earned the degrees of Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1970 and the Masters of Fine Arts from Stanford University in 1976. He studied at Stanford with Nathan Oliveira and Frank Lobdell. At the Art Institute he studied with Joan Brown and Jack Jefferson among others. The major influence on his work is the classical figurative tradition.

His work was selected for the Crocker-Kingsley exhibit, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California in 2005. A large landscape was selected for the Palm Springs Desert Museum 33^rd National Juried Exhibition in 2002. David Kampmann was included in San Jose Art League's 21 Contemporary American Realists in 1982. The same year he exhibited his large studio figurative paintings at the San Jose Museum of Art.

By Land and By Sea was exhibited at the Stanford University Faculty Club, May-June 2008 and the collection Fishers of Men was exhibited in the Kings Gallery, San Francisco in 2005.