The German painter and graphic artist Christa Böhme was born Christa Krefft in Berlin in 1940. From 1958 to 1961 she studied graphic arts at the Meisterschule für das Kunsthandwerk in Berlin-Charlottenburg. This was followed by studies in painting and graphic arts from 1961 to 1963 at the University of the Fine Arts, Berlin (West). In 1964 she moved to East Berlin and lived and worked freelance in Berlin-Pankow. A study trip took her to the Soviet Union in 1977. From 1977 to 1980 she was a master student of Wilhelm Schmied at the Academy of Arts of the GDR, and in 1980 she took up a teaching position at the Weißensee University of the Arts, Berlin (East). In 1991 Böhme chose suicide.