Bernd Koberling was born in 1938 in Berlin. He studied from 1958 to 1960 at the University of the Fine Arts (West Berlin). Alongside K. H. Hödicke he founded the artists’ group VISION in 1961 and co-founded the Grossgörschen 35 artists’ cooperative gallery in West Berlin in 1964. From 1981 to 1988 he held a professorship at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg, and from 1988 to 2007 at the University of Arts, Berlin. In 2006 he was awarded the Fred Thieler Prize for painting and was elected to the Academy of Arts, Berlin, in 2012. Koberling lives and works in Berlin and Iceland.