Karl Horst Hödicke was born in 1938 in Nuremberg. From 1959 to 1964 he studied painting at the University of the Fine Arts, West Berlin, under Fred Thieler. In 1964 he was a co-initiator of the self-help gallery Grossgörschen 35 in West Berlin. A period in New York was followed by a scholarship at the Villa Massimo in Rome. In 1967 his work featured in documenta 6. From 1974 to 2005 he taught as a professor at the University of Arts in Berlin. Since 1980 he has been a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, and in 1988 received the Fred Thieler Prize. Hödicke died 2024 in Berlin.