Klaus Zylla was born in 1953 in Cottbus (Brandenburg). From 1977 to 1980 he worked as a screen printer, initially studying part-time and later full-time until 1982 at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin, after which he was head of the screen printing workshop at the Academy of Art in Dresden until 1983. From 1985 to 1990 he ran his own screen printing studio in East Berlin. He was awarded the Art Prize of the GrundkreditBank in Berlin in 1993. Zylla lives and works in Berlin and Portugal.