Ursula Wendorff was born in Berlin-Moabit, a district of west-central Berlin. She studied between 1937 and 1943 at the "Meisterschule für Graphik" (art college) in Berlin, while also, at one stage taking evening classes in art with Otto Nagel. Nagel had already established a reputation as an artist and teacher, but he was also known to be a former Communist activist and was regarded with suspicion by the government Following his release from Camp Sachsenhausen in 1937, banned from teaching, so Wendorff was not permitted to describe herself as his "Meisterschulerin" ("loosely, "star pupil"") of Otto Nagel till after 1945. Her illegal art classes with the maestro took place in the back room of a pub which also housed a small "whores' room" (one-room brothel) which had the advantage that it virtually excluded any possibility of an official visit from "the authorities". Between 1946 and 1951 she studied at the in Berlin-Weissensee where she was taught by , Ernst Rudolf Vogenauer and .