William Wolfson, a painter, printmaker and commercial illustrator, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied at Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh and at both the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League (under Robert Henri) in New York City, and with Arthur Watson Sparks, George Willoughby Manyard, and Frank Vincent DuMond.. His work is associated with the Ashcan School of social realism. Wolfson taught at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), and later at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, California. Wolfson produced a significant body of artwork for Reader's Digest during the 1940s, and his paintings and lithographs are held by numerous public and private institutions. Willam Wolfson died at Los Angeles, California.