Born in Charlotte, North Carolina on March 12, 1955, Mitch Kolbe attended schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area.  In 1973, he moved to New York City to study with Robert Brackman, Robert Schultz, Jack Faraggasso, and John H. Sanden at the Art Students League as a scholarship award student.  He also studied privately with Lou Dedonato at the Salmagundi Club.  In 1977, Mitch studied photography at Queens College in Charlotte, and enjoyed his first one-man exhibition of paintings at the Robinet Art Gallery there.  It was also in 1977 that he first visited and exhibited in Florida, at Tarpon Springs.

His art background and work experience are as varied as any contemporary artist.  Since New York, he has lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, and Tarpon Springs, Florida.  He has worked as a commercial artist, graphics printer, muralist and sculptor, while pursuing his fine art painting.  In Atlanta, he worked on the restoration of the Atlanta Cyclorama.  At Kennedy Space Center in Florida, he completed a series of realistic murals describing natural Florida.  He produced 90 life-size sculpted heads of children from around the world for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, also in Atlanta.

In 1990, Mitch decided to make Tarpon Springs his primary residence and moved into the studio that once belonged to the famous American Landscape Painter, George Inness Jr.  For seven years, Mitch's tight realistic style continued to evolve.  His scenic works, which had a classical feel, were starting to mature into a looser impressionistic look, rich in color and immediately appealing.  His strongest ties are to the pre-modernist painters who began portraying Florida more than a century ago.  This approach is still one of the most powerful in conveying the distinctive qualities of the landscape.