Horst Hussel was born in 1934 in Greifswald (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania). He began his study of art in Wismar and continued it in 1953 at the Academy of Art in Dresden. From 1954 to 1958 he studied at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin, but was not allowed to graduate, so commenced studies of graphic art at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin, which were interrupted by the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. He went on to work as a freelance graphic artist, illustrator, writer and publisher in East Berlin founding, in 1994 the publishing house Dronte-Presse. Hussel died in Berlin in 2017.