Bio
Sylvia Solochek Walters received her undergraduate degree in art and her MS and MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her woodcuts have been shown in numerous national/international exhibitions and have won many awards – including Honors in 2014 for Tradition in Printmaking from the Southern Graphics Council International at their annual conference in San Francisco. Her prints are held in the collections of the St. Louis Art Museum, Chazen (formerly Elvehjem) Museum of Art; Oakland Museum; San Francisco Fine Arts Museum Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts; New York Public Library Print & Dwg Division; Library of Congress; Laurel Rogers Museum of Art; Judah Magnes Museum of Jewish Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Milwaukee Jewish Museum; Museum of Northern California Art; Janet Turner Print Museum, CSU-Chico; University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Golda Meier Library: de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University; Museum of Texas Tech University; YIVO Archives & Library Collections; Chin Hsaio-Yi, Director, National Palace Museum of Taiwan; Dee Roy and Mary M. Jones Collection California State Polytechnic University; US Information Agency; Kentucky Arts Commission; Seven-up Corp.; Readers' Digest Permanent Collection; lst Nat'l Bank of Boston; Metal Container Corp.; 3-M Corp.; Allied Mills; United Lithograph; Greenwich Conn. Library, Tulsa City-County Library; SFSU J. Paul Leonard Library; Burdine's Department Stores, additional University and College and private Collections. She is currently represented by the Kala Art Institute Gallery in Berkeley and the Annex Galleries, Santa Rosa, California.
Walters began teaching in 1963 and subsequently taught relief printmaking, drawing, painting, and related courses at large and small, public and private colleges, art schools and universities in different parts of the country. Eventually, she and her husband, Jim Walters, and their two cats settled in St. Louis, where they both taught at the University of Missouri at St. Louis (UMSL) and where she founded the art department. She became the department's first (and third) Chair as well as its gallery director for 10 years. In 1984, she was invited to become a faculty member and the permanent Chair of the art department at San Francisco State University. With the exception of two years during which time she served as Acting Dean of the College of Creative Arts at SFSU, she remained in that position for twenty years until her working retirement in 2004 after which she taught relief printmaking for five years. Awarded Professor Emerita status in 2009, she currently serves on the Board of the Kala Art Institute. In 2013 she was Assistant Editor (along with editor Maryly Snow) for California Society of Printmakers: One Hundred Years 1913-2013, an award-winning publication produced to celebrate the centennial of the CSP. The book was re-edited and reissued as an e-book in 2015.