Markus Lüpertz was born in 1941 in Reichenberg (today Liberec, Czech Republic). From 1956 to 1961 he studied at the Academy of Arts in Krefeld and at the State Academy of Art in Düsseldorf, he moved to West Berlin in 1962. In 1964 he was co-founder of the Grossgörschen 35 artists’ cooperative gallery. In 1982 he took part in documenta 7 in Kassel. From 1974 to 1986 he taught as a professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe. He held a professorship at the State Academy of Art in Düsseldorf from 1986 to 1988, where he was rector from 1988 to 2009. The recipient of various awards, among them the Villa Romana Prize and the International Mendelssohn Prize of Leipzig, Lüpertz lives and works in Düsseldorf, Berlin, Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg) and Florence.