Willy Ørskov studied sculpture at the Valand School of Fine Arts in Gothenburg in Sweden between 1954 to 1960. Before this he had worked with ceramics, but more as a craft than as a medium of sculpture or fine art. In 1960 he moved to Paris, but regularly traveled to Copenhagen as well as to Verona and Pietrasanta in Italy for longer stays. In 1970 he settled more permanently in Pietrasanta, until he in 1974 moved to Copenhagen to take up a professorship at the Danish Royal Academy of Art. He stayed in Copenhagen until 1984, where he moved back to Verona in Italy. Ørskov died in Denmark in 1990.

Throughout his carrier Ørskov exhibited widely in both Denmark and abroad. In 1964 he participated in an exhibition with three other sculptors at Louisiana - Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk: Jørgen Hauge Sørensen (DK), Quinto Ghermandi (IT), and Shinkichi Tajiri (US). The show traveled to both Lund and Gothenburg in Sweden. He later had solo exhibitions at Maison du Danemark, Paris (1968), Fyns Kunstmuseum, Odense (1968), Louisiana - Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk (1975) and represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale in 1976. In 1979 he had a solo exhibition at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek and in 1982 at the National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen. Between 1987 and 1988 his exhibition “Open Sculpture” was shown in Helsinki, Gothenburg, Bergen and Odense. Besides these institutional exhibitions he showed with a number of galleries: Art & Project, Amsterdam, Galleria Apollinaire, Milan, Jysk Kunstgalleri, Copenhagen, Plus-Kern, Gent, New Smith Gallery, Brussels.

Ørskov’s work is today found in the following museum collections: National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, ARoS, Århus, Brandts, Odense, HEART Museum of Conetemporary Art, Herning, KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg, Louisiana - Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Randers Kunstmusuem, Randers, Sorø Kunstmuseum, Sorø, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.