Gudrun Brüne was born in Berlin in 1941. From 1961 to 1966 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig. There she met Bernhard Heisig, in whose studio she worked for a time as an assistant and whom she later married. From 1977 to 1999 she taught painting and graphic arts at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Arts in Halle (Saale). She received art awards from the Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund and the GDR. Brüne lived and worked in Havelland (Brandenburg) until she died in 2025.
Claudia Busching was born in Munich in 1954. From 1976 to 1981 she studied painting at the University of Arts, West Berlin, under Hann Trier, with whom she also took her master class. Various scholarships enabled her to work as a freelance artist in Berlin and Bonn in the 1980s, as well as a residence at Casa Baldi in Olevano Romano near Rome in 1988. Busching lives and works in Berlin and Rome.
Manfred Butzmann was born in Potsdam (Brandenburg) in 1942. From 1964 to 1969 he studied graphic design at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin under Arno Mohr, Werner Klemke and Klaus Wittkugel. From 1970 he worked as a graphic artist and book illustrator in Berlin-Pankow. He received the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Academy of Arts (Berlin) in 1991, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1993 and the Ferdinand von Quast Medal (Berlin Monument Prize) in 1999. Since 2007 he has lived and worked in Potsdam-Bornim (Brandenburg). In 2020 Butzmann was an honorary recipient of the Brandenburg Art Prize.
Luciano Castelli was born in Lucerne (Switzerland) in 1951. He studied at the University of Applied Arts there from 1968 to 1969, followed by an apprenticeship as a sign painter. In 1972 he participated in documenta 5, gaining his international breakthrough. From 1978 to 1987 Castelli lived in West Berlin, where he exhibited at the Galerie am Moritzplatz and was assigned to the Neue Wilde group. Castelli has since lived and worked in 2008 in Zurich, Paris and Normandy.
Peter Chevalier was born in Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg) in 1953. From 1976 to 1980 he studied painting at the University of Fine Arts in Braunschweig under Hermann Albert and Alfred Winter-Rust. He moved to Berlin in 1981. In 1985 in Hanover he was awarded the Sprengel Prize for Fine Art of the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung. In addition, from 1992 to 2019, he taught as professor of painting at the State Academy of Fine Art in Stuttgart. Chevalier lives and works in Berlin and Stuttgart.
Fritz Cremer was born in Arnsberg an der Ruhr (North Rhine-Westphalia) in 1906. From 1929 to 1934 he studied at the United State Schools of Free and Applied Art in Berlin. In the 1920s he became a member of the German Communist Party. After the war years he taught at the Academy of Applied Art in Vienna and returned to East Berlin in 1950. Important sculptural commissions were the monuments in the concentration camps Ravensbrück, Mauthausen and Buchenwald, which he created in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1977 he was invited to documenta 6, and in 1992 he received the Stiftung Bremer Sculptor’s Prize. Cremer died in Berlin in 1993.
Karl-Heinz Dennig was born in Wilferdingen (Baden-Württemberg) in 1939. From 1957 to 1959 he trained as a steel engraver in Pforzheim. This was followed by studies in painting at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg under Emil Schumacher. In 1962 he received a guest professorship at the Academy of Arts in Kassel. From 1964 to 1966 he followed this with a study visit to London and spent some time in Rome. Dennig lives and works in Berlin.
Rolf Biebl was born in Klingenthal (Saxony) in 1951. He studied sculpture at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin. From 1980 to 1983 he was a master student at the Academy of Arts of the GDR under Ludwig Engelhardt. Together with Clemens Gröszer and Harald K. Schulze he founded the artists’ group NEON REAL in 1981. He was awarded the last Will Lammert Prize of the Academy of Arts (Berlin) in 1992. He received the first prize at the International Symposium of Sculptors in Eubabrunn in 2003. Biebl lives and works in Berlin.
Ingrid Bertel was born in Eberswalde (Brandenburg) in 1949. From 1968 to 1972 she studied at the University of Economics, East Berlin. Since 1990 she has been involved in the discovery and development of unused industrial wastelands, such as a disused factory site in Berlin-Köpenick. In this process she expanded her means of artistic expression to include performance and installations. Bertel lives and works in Berlin.
Hermann Albert was born in 1937 in Ansbach (Bavaria). From 1958 to 1964 he studied at the University of Fine Arts in Braunschweig. He then went to West Berlin and in 1971 spent a year in Florence on a scholarship at the Villa Romana. From 1974 he taught at the University of Fine Arts in Braunschweig and worked as a professor there from 1985 to 2001. He participated in documenta 6 in Kassel in 1977 and received the Prize of Nord/LB in 1985. Albert is based in Berlin and Brandenburg.