Riva Helfond studied at the Art Student's League, New York. She was a WPA artist working in a variety of printmaking techniques including lithographs, woodcuts, etchings, aquatints and silkscreens. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, National Academy of Design, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Art. Her work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Los Angeles Museum of Art and many others. She taught printmaking at the Harlem Arts Community Center and later at New York University.