Hartmut Neumann was born in 1954 in Delmenhorst (Lower Saxony). From 1976 to 1980 he studied at the University of Arts in Bremen. In 1981 he received the prize of the Young Art Forum, in 1983 the Young West art prize, in 1988 the Art Prize of the German Association of Artists and in 2003 the Willi Oltmanns Prize. Scholarships enabled him to study in Paris and Rome. Since 1992 he has taught as a professor at the University of Fine Arts in Braunschweig. Neumann lives and works in Cologne and Braunschweig (Lower Saxony).
Roland Nicolaus was born in 1954 in East Berlin. From 1979 to 1983 he studied painting and graphic art at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin. From 1986 to 1989 he was a master student at the Academy of Arts of the GDR under Willi Neubert. From 1991 to 2000 he taught at the Humboldt University and the University of the Arts in Berlin. In 1992 he was awarded the VEAG Prize for painting. Since 1998 Nicolaus has lived and worked in Blumberg (Brandenburg).
A. R. Penck was born Ralf Winkler in Dresden in 1939. From 1953 he attended courses in drawing and painting given by Jürgen Böttcher (Strawalde). In the 1960s, in addition to paintings, he produced books, sculptures and his first films. In 1969 he first adopted the pseudonym A. R. Penck. In 1972 he was invited to documenta 5 in Kassel, and in 1975 awarded the Will Grohmann Prize of the Academy of Arts, West Berlin. He left the GDR in 1980 and settled in the Federal Republic, in Cologne. From 1988 to 2003 he taught as a professor at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf, upon retiring he moved to Dublin (Ireland). In 2007 a major retrospective of his oeuvre was exhibited at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt. Penck died in Zurich in 2017.
Wolfgang Petrick was born in 1939 in East Berlin. From 1958 to 1965 he studied at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin. In 1964 he was a co-founder of the artists’ cooperative gallery Grossgörschen 35 in West Berlin. In 1971 he spent a period in Paris with the scholarship of the Cité Internationale des Arts. In 1976 he took part in documenta 6 in Kassel. From 1975 to 2007 he taught as a professor at the University of Arts in Berlin. In 1993 he was elected to the Academy of Arts, Berlin. Petrick lives and works in Berlin and, since 1994, in New York.
Wolfgang Peuker was born in 1945 in Aussig (today Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic), but moved with his family to Halle/Saale (Saxony-Anhalt). From 1963 to 1965 he attended evening classes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig. From 1965 to 1970 by he completed a study course there under Harry Blume, Bernhard Heisig, Wolfgang Mattheuer and Werner Tübke. Peuker was awarded the Art Prize of the City of Leipzig and the Art Prize of the GDR. In 1984 he took part in the Venice Biennale. In 1993 he became professor at the Weissensee University of the Arts, Berlin. Peuker died in Berlin in 2001.
Stefan Plenkers was born in 1945 in Ebern near Bamberg (Bavaria) and grew up in Görlitz (Saxony). From 1967 to 1972 he completed a study of graphic art at the Academy of Art in Dresden where he became a master student under Gerhard Kettner until 1982. Between 1986 and 1994 he embarked on many study travels taking in Berlin, Iraq, China, Lapland and the USA. In 2011 he was honoured with a retrospective of his work at the Städtische Galerie in Dresden. Stefan Plenkers last lived and worked in Dresden, where he died in 2024.
Arno Mohr was born in 1910 in Posen (today Poznań, Poland), but grew up in Berlin from 1911 onwards. In 1933–34 he studied at the United State Schools of Free and Applied Art in Berlin-Charlottenburg. After the Second World War, from 1946 to 1975 he was a professor at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin, of which he was a co-founder. Mohr received numerous honours, for example in 1961 the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Academy of Arts of the GDR and in 1980 the National Prize of the GDR. Mohr died in Berlin in 2001.
Helmut Middendorf was born in 1953 in Dinklage (Lower Saxony). From 1973 to 1979 he studied painting at the University of Arts, West Berlin, and was a master student under K. H. Hödicke. In 1977 he co-founded the Galerie am Moritzplatz in West Berlin and numbered among the Neue Wilde. In 1979 Middendorf taught experimental film at the University of Arts, West Berlin, then spent a period in New York with a DAAD scholarship. Middendorf lives and works in Berlin and Athens.
Silke Miche was born in 1970 in Nordhausen (Thuringia). After a study course at the Free University of Berlin, she studied painting at the Weissensee University of the Arts in Berlin from 1997 to 2004, where she became a master’s student. In 2000 she was awarded an Erasmus Scholarship at the Accademia di belle arti di Venezia and in 2010 a scholarship from the Käthe-Dorsch-Stiftung. Miche lives and works in Berlin and Brandenburg.
Werner Liebmann was born in Königsthal (Thuringia) in 1951. After studying chemistry and working as an engineer, between 1976 and 1982 he completed his study of painting under Hannes Wagner at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Arts in Halle (Saale), following which he was a master student of Bernhard Heisig at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig. From 1986 he taught at the Academy of Art in Dresden. From 1993 to 2017 he was professor of painting at the Weissensee University of the Arts, Berlin. Liebmann lives and works in Berlin.