Wolfgang Speer was born in Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt) in 1926. The painter and graphic artist directed the Berlin-Pankow Graphic Arts Centre for many years from 1960 onwards. In addition, he served as curator of the central exhibitions of popular visual art in the GDR. In 1970, Speer undertook a six-week study trip through North Vietnam together with Peter Westphal. During this stay, a large number of portraits were produced. Fifty of these works were exhibited in Hanoi following their return. He passed away in 2015.

Peter Westphal was born in Berlin in 1938. There he completed training as a lettering and decorative painter. After undertaking compulsory military service in the National People’s Army of the German Democratic Republic from 1963 to 1965, he worked until 1968 as chief graphic designer at the VEB Berlin Wine Wholesale Cellar. From 1960 to 1973, together with Wolfgang Speer, he directed the Berlin-Pankow Graphic Arts Centre. Study trips took him, among other places, to China, Italy, Vietnam and the Soviet Union. Until 1990, Westphal was a member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR. Since 1992 he has lived and worked in the Uckermark region of Brandenburg.

Christl Maria Göthner was born in Bad Lausick (Saxony) in 1957. From 1978 to 1984, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig under Prof. Bernhard Heisig, graduating with a degree in painting and graphic design. From 1990 to 1993, she was a master student at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. She works as a freelancer in Leipzig.

Núria Quevedo was born in Barcelona in 1938 and went into exile in East Berlin with her parents in 1952. From 1958 to 1963, she studied graphic arts at the Weissensee University of the Arts under, among others, Arno Mohr and Werner Klemke, with whom she later became a master student at the Academy of Arts of the GDR from 1968 to 1971. In 1974, she became the first woman artist to receive the Max Lingner Prize. Until 1990, she was a member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR. Quevedo lived and worked in Berlin and Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Catalonia, from 1997 onwards. She passed away in 2025.

Peter Ackermann was born in Jena (Thuringia) in 1934. Between 1956 and 1962, he studied at the University of Arts in West Berlin. After 1963, he initially worked as a freelance painter in Karlsruhe. In 1976/77, he held a professorship at the University of Arts in Berlin before taking up a professorship at the Academy in Karlsruhe in 1977. He received several awards for his artistic work: in 1965 he received the German Critics’ Prize and in 1971 the Villa Romana Prize. In 1977 he was represented at documenta 6 in Kassel. He died in 2007.

Xago was born Rolf Xago Schröder in 1942 in Elsterwerda (Brandenburg). Between 1962 and 1966, he studied philosophy, literary studies, and cultural studies at Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1966, Xago became an assistant at the Babelsberg Film and Television Academy, before moving in 1970 to the German Building Academy of the GDR, where he conducted research on urban sociology and Bauhaus. From 1975 onwards, he devoted himself more intensively to painting and joined the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR in 1976. On 11 April 1990, the members elected him as the first and at the same time the last freely elected President and “First Spokesman.”

Wilfried Falkenthal was born in 1942 in Baruth/Mark (Brandenburg). From 1962 to 1966, he studied art education and German language and literature at the University of Leipzig. He then continued his training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig until 1971, where he studied painting under Werner Tübke and Wolfgang Mattheuer, graduating with a diploma. Between 1971 and 1990, he was a member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR, and from 1985 to 1990 he also served as chairman of the Leipzig Artists’ Cooperative. Since 1971, he has been working as a freelance artist in Leipzig.

Daniel Sambo-Richter was born in 1966 in Görlitz (Saxony) and grew up in Cottbus. From 1982 to 1985, he undertook the preparatory programme in painting and graphic art at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts under Hans Scheuerecker and Uli Richter. In 1996, he was awarded a scholarship from the Sparkassen Cultural Foundation of Hesse-Thuringia, which included a residency at the Künstlerhaus Willingshausen, and that same year he received the Brandenburg Art Prize. This was followed by further national and international scholarships and residencies. Sambo-Richter lives and works in Berlin.

Hans-Otto Schmidt was born in 1945 in Bützow, Mecklenburg. In 1961 he began an apprenticeship as a carpenter before working as a qualified woodworker. He later joined the Landestheater Halle as a stage technician and, from 1965, worked at several theatres in East Berlin. That same year he began his artistic practice as a self-taught artist. In 1972 he became a member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR and exhibited his work publicly for the first time. From 2001 he lived and worked in Luisenhof, Uckermark. He died in Berlin in 2025.