Johannes Grützke was born in Berlin in 1937. From 1957 to 1964 he studied painting at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin. In 1973 he was a co-founder of the School of the New Magnificence. From 1989 to 1991, he created the monumental mural Procession of People’s Representatives in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt am Main. From 1992 to 2002 he taught as a professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. In 2012 he received the Hannah Höch Prize of the State of Berlin and the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin honoured him with a retrospective. Grützke died in Berlin in 2017.