Ulla Walter was born in 1955 in Meiningen (Thuringia). In 1976 she was admitted to the painting course at the Academy of Art in Dresden, which she did not complete. In 1978 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig under Bernhard Heisig and took part in his master class from 1981 to 1984. She moved to East Berlin in 1983. Among the awards she has received are the working scholarship of the Käthe Dorsch Foundation and the Brandenburg Art Prize. Walter lives and works in Schöneiche near Berlin.