Born in Johnstone (Scotland) in 1946 Brian Kelly studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1973 to 1977. Scholarships made travel to Istanbul, Paris and Berlin possible for study purposes. From 1977 to 1979 he taught printing at the Print Studio in Glasgow and in 1980 drawing at the Urdang Academy in London. Back in Glasgow, from 1981 to 1988 he gave courses in silkscreen printing at the Glasgow School of Art. In 1988 Kelly moved to West Berlin, where he lives and works today.
Klaus Killisch was born in 1959 in Wurzen (Saxony). He studied at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin from 1981 to 1986. In 1989 his collaboration with the Wilfriede Maaß artists’ cooperative gallery in East Berlin began. In 1990 he took part in the group exhibition L’autre Allemagne hors les murs in Paris and the Venice Biennale. The Stiftung Kulturfonds awarded him a working scholarship in 1992, with the Senate of Berlin following this up with another scholarship. Since 2006 he has been involved in the Collective Task art project. Killisch lives and works in Berlin.
Carl-Heinz Kliemann was born in 1924 in Berlin. From 1945 to 1950 he studied under Max Kaus and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin. From 1966 to 1978 he taught painting and graphic art as a professor at the Technical University in Karlsruhe. He received the Prize for Graphic Art of the City of Berlin, a scholarship for the Villa Romana and the Federal Order of Merit. Numerous retrospectives in German museums and galleries honoured his work. Kliemann died in 2016 in Berlin.
Rolf Händler was born in Halle/Saale (Saxony-Anhalt) in 1938. He studied commercial art at the University of Applied Art in Magdeburg from 1956 to 1959 and painting at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin from 1961 to 1966, then was a masters student of Karl Erich Müller at the German Academy of Arts, East Berlin, until 1972. Afterwards he worked as a freelance painter and graphic artist. Händler died in Berlin in 2021.
Sabina Grzimek was born in Rome in 1942. From 1962 to 1967 she studied graphic art and sculpture at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin. Afterwards she was a masters student of Fritz Cremer. In 1986 she took part in the Venice Biennale. In 1983 she received the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Academy of Arts of the GDR, and in 2011 she was awarded the honorary prize of the Brandenburg Art Prize. Grzimek lives and works in Berlin and Erkner (Brandenburg).
Werner Heldt was born in 1904 in Berlin. From 1922 to 1924 he studied at the School of Applied Arts. This was followed from 1924 to 1930 by studies at the United State Schools of Free and Applied Art, Berlin. After this he worked as a freelance artist in the Ateliergemeinschaft Klosterstrasse. From 1940 he was a soldier in the Second World War, returning in 1946 after being held prisoner-of-war by the British. Until 1949 he lived in Berlin-Weissensee (East Berlin), before moving to West Berlin. In 1950 he was awarded the Art Prize of the City of Berlin. In 1954 Heldt died in Italy.
Sabine Heller was born in 1956 in East Berlin. Her apprenticeship as a carpenter was followed from 1976 to 1981 by studies in ceramic design at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin. From 1984 to 1989 she lived and worked in the artists’ community at Burg Goldbeck in Brandenburg. Since 1989 Heller has run a workshop with Tomas Grzimek in Sieversdorf in the Oderbruch (Brandenburg), where she lives today.
Heinz Heisig was born in 1951 in Weissenfels (Saxony-Anhalt). From 1972 to 1975 he completed studies in engineering and business, gaining his diploma. From 1979 to 1984 he studied painting and graphic art at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin. Since then he has worked as a freelance artist, has participated in many exhibitions and is represented in various collections. Heisig lives and works in Neuruppin (Brandenburg).
Anton Henning was born in 1964 in West Berlin. In the 1980s he lived in London, later in New York. Since 1992 his paintings, sculptures and installations have been represented in exhibitions in German and international museums and galleries. In 2001 he was awarded the Berlin Art Prize of the Academy of Arts. From 2018 to 2020 he taught at the Academy of Art in Dresden. Henning lives and works in Brandenburg.
Sabine Herrmann was born in 1961 in Meissen (Saxony). From 1979 to 1981 she was an intern at the Institute for Monument Conservation, East Berlin, then studied painting until 1986 at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin under Heinrich Tessmer and Dieter Goltzsche. 1989 she began her collaboration in the artists’ cooperative gallery of Wilfriede Maaß. In 1992 she received a scholarship from the Senate of Berlin and in 1993 the Art Prize of the GrundkreditBank, Berlin. Several scholarships for periods abroad followed. In 2016 she taught painting at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen. Herrmann lives and works in Berlin.