He was born in Petrinja in 1921. He obtained a degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1947 and specialized under Antun Augustinčić in 1949. He furthered his studies in Paris as a scholarship holder (1959-1960). In the early sixties, he was a member of the Gorgona art group. He exhibited independently from 1955. He exhibited at the Venice Biennale (1976), at the São Paulo Biennale (1979) and at the Documenta in Kassel (2002). His works can be found in numerous museums and private collections in the country and abroad, and he is included in anthologies of world sculpture. He is the author of numerous sculptures in public spaces. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb bought the contents of his studio for a museum exhibition in 2007. In June 2019, just before his 98th birthday, Kožarić’s 1963 sculpture Oblik prostora (Frižider)/Shape of Space (Fridge) was included in the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). He won numerous awards and recognitions, and received the Vladimir Nazor Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. He died in Zagreb in 2020.

He participated in the Mediterranean Sculpture Symposium on two occasions, in 1970 and 2006.