Steffa Reis was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany on 1 July 1931 and settled in England with her family in 1937. She studied at the Harrow School of Art in London (now University of Westminster), later immigrating with her family to Israel in 1957, where she studied further with Marcel Janco, and later at The Royal Academy and the Lithographic Print Workshop in Paris. Steffa Reis works at her studio in Tel Aviv, Israel and is also a resident artist in the Safed Artists Colony. She is a member of the Israel Painters and Sculptors Association, with whom she frequently exhibits.