William F. Wolff, painter, printmaker, and educator, was born on 30 December 1922 in San Francisco, California. He attended the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) from 1939 to 1943. Following his service in World War II, he earned his B.A. in 1950 and his M.A. in 1951 from the University of California at Berkeley. Wolff also studied with Max Beckmann in 1950 at Mills College, etching with Gordon Cook in 1968; and lithography with Richard Graf in 1969.

Wolff's first major exhibition took place in 1951 at the Lucien Labaudt Gallery in San Francisco. Throughout his career he would exhibit widely in the Bay Area, U.S., and abroad. He was an active member of the California Society of Printmakers and the Graphic Arts Workshop. Wolff severed as president of the California Society of Printmakers from 1988 to 1990. He devoted many years teaching art at the San Francisco School District’s Youth Guidance Center. 

In 2001, William Wolff donated over fifty works on paper to the Hearst Art Gallery at Saint Mary's College of California [now the Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art]. His work is also represented in the collections of the Monterey Museum of Art, California; the Oakland Museum of California Art; the David Owsley Museum of Art, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana; the San Francisco Museums of Fine Arts, California; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Library of congress, Washington, D.C.

A major retrospective of his work was mounted at St. Mary's College in 2002. William F. Wolff died in San Francisco on October 29, 2004.