Born in Saint Petersburg and educated in law at the Turku Academy, Pehr Adolf Kruskopf studied drawing with Frans Fredrik Sedmigradsky in Saint Petersburg and spent most of his life as a drawing teacher at the Imperial Alexander University in Helsinki. He was one of Finland's first lithographers.

For the book “Finland framstäldt i teckningar”, edited by Zacharias Topelius and published between 1845 and 1852, Pehr Adolf Kruskopf created 31 lithographs of various parts of Finland. Hand-coloured editions of the book have also been published.