Born in Media, Pennsylvania, in 1927, Scharf was encouraged to study art by American artist and illustrator N.C. Wyeth. Scharf studied painting under him at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. During World War II, he served in the US Army, after which he returned to Pennsylvania to finish his studies at the academy and to take classes at the Barnes Foundation. He later traveled to Europe, where he enrolled at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris. Scharf would work as a seaman on a tanker, travel to South America, and serve as a clown diver in an aquacade in Florida before moving to New York in the 1950s. He became a close friend of Mark Rothko and his wife, Mell, as well as other artists of the New York School. Scharf assisted Rothko with his mural project for the Rothko Chapel, a nondenominational place of worship and a site-specific artwork in Houston, Texas. He would later serve as an officer of the Rothko Foundation. A beloved educator, Scharf taught at a number of institutions including the School of Visual Arts in New York, the San Francisco Art Institute, Stanford University, the Pratt Institute, and the Arts Students League in New York, which he retired from in 2015. “Bill was a gentleman, a person of unassuming wisdom,” league instructor Bruce Dorfman said. “We exchanged art and friendship. He was a caring teacher and mentor to his students. Most importantly, William Scharf was a great and important artist, and he loved his wife Sally.” Former board member Victoria Hibbs added: “Bill loved teaching and respected each student’s style. . .He guided you toward your best work. He was gentle and sweet, but had a subtle, very wicked sense of humor.”Scharf’s paintings can be found in the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the Brooklyn Museum; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin; and the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC.