Wolfgang Mattheuer was born in 1927 in Reichenbach in Vogtland (Saxony). From 1941 to 1944 he completed his apprenticeship as a lithographer. He studied at the University of Applied Art in Leipzig for a year, then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig. After two years of freelance work in East Berlin, he returned to Leipzig in 1953. From 1965 to 1974 he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. Awarded a number of GDR National Prizes, he took part in documenta 6 in 1977 and the 41st Biennale in Venice in 1984. In 1988 he pointedly resigned from the SED (Socialist Unity Party of the GDR). In 1993 he was honoured with the Order of Merit of theFederal Republic of Germany. 1994 saw him withdraw from the Academy of Arts in Berlin in protest. Mattheuer died in Leipzig in 2004.
Helmut Metzner was born in 1946 in Sigmaringen (Baden-Württemberg). From 1971 to 1976 he studied painting at the University of Arts in West Berlin. In 1977 a one-year DAAD scholarship took him to New York. In 2007 he was commissioned to paint a mural in the rebuilt Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Thuringia. Metzner lives and works in Berlin and Brandenburg.
Harald Metzkes was born in 1929 in Bautzen (Saxony). After the Second World War he studied painting until 1953 at the Academy of Art in Dresden and was a master student at the German Academy of Arts, East Berlin, from 1955 to 1958. In the 1970s he was awarded the National Prize of the GDR and the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Academy of Arts of the GDR. 1977 was the year of his first major solo presentation, in the Nationalgalerie Berlin, and 1984 he took part in the Venice Biennale. In 2007 he was awarded the Hannah Höch Prize of the State of Berlin and in 2012 the honorary prize of the prime minister of the State of Brandenburg for his life’s work. Metzkes has lived and worked in Wegendorf near Berlin since 1992.
Ingeborg Hunzinger was born in 1915 in Berlin. From 1935 to 1936 she studied at the Berlin United State Schools of Free and Applied Art, then trained as a stone sculptor in Würzburg. During the period of National Socialism in Germany she was prohibited from working. She emigrated to Italy in 1939, then returned to Germany in 1942 and lived in the Black Forest. In 1949 she went to East Berlin. From 1952 to 1956 she attended the master class of Fritz Cremer and Gustav Seitz at the German Academy of Arts. Until her death in 2009 she worked in Berlin as a freelance sculptor.
Karl-Heinz Krause was born in 1924 in Uckermark (Brandenburg). In 1947 he began studies at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin extending those studies from 1948 to 1952 at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin. As a freelance artist he created sculptures for public spaces. He was awarded the Georg Kolbe Prize and several scholarships at the Villa Romana in Florence. Krause died in Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate) in 2019.
Annette Krisper-Bešlić was born in 1949 in Leipzig. From 1967 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig, graduating in 1972. Until 1996 she worked under the name Annette Peuker-Krisper. From 1981 to 2014 she taught at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Arts in Halle (Saale), and from 1994 as professor of visual arts foundation studies, painting and graphic art. Krisper-Bešlić lives and works in Leipzig.
Henning Kürschner was born in 1941 in Wernigerode in the Harz region (Saxony-Anhalt). From 1961 he took university courses in art history and German studies in Mainz and Tübingen and then painting at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin. He was a member of the Grossgörschen 35 artists’ cooperative gallery. Among the awards he has received are a scholarship at the Villa Massimo and the Fred Thieler Prize for painting. From 1981 to 2007 he taught as professor at the University of Arts, Berlin. Kürschner lives and works in Berlin and Potsdam (Brandenburg).
Hans Laabs was born in 1915 in Treptow an der Rega in Pomerania (today Trzebiatów, Poland). From 1937 to 1940 he studied at the School of Applied Art for Art and Graphics in Stettin. After the war he took courses in figure drawing at the University of the Fine Arts, West Berlin. He belonged to the Neue Gruppe Berlin, established in 1951, and was a co-founder of the surrealist artistic cabaret Die Badewanne (The Bathtub). Between 1953 and 1983 he lived and worked on Ibiza (Spain) and in West Berlin. He received many awards, including the Art Prize of the City of Berlin (West Berlin) in 1958 and the German Critics’ Award for his life’s work in 2003. In 1995 a retrospective was held in the Martin Gropius Building in Berlin. Laabs died in Berlin in 2004.
Karl-Ludwig Lange was born in 1952 in West Berlin. He studied from 1978 to 1986 at the University of Arts, West Berlin, where he later taught. From 1989 to 1991 he held a scholarship from the Karl Hofer Gesellschaft, Berlin. Lange died in Berlin in 2018.
Thomas Lange was born in 1957 in West Berlin. He completed a study of painting at the University of Arts, West Berlin, under Wolfgang Petrick and was a pupil in Herbert Kaufmann’s master class in 1982. Among the awards he garnered are the scholarship of the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff-Stiftung in 1983 and the Primo Premio Suzzara, Mantua, Italy in 2001. He taught at the University of Marburg in 1986 and at the University of Arts, Berlin, from 1988 to 1989. Lange lives and works in Berlin and Italy.