Verena Hann was born in Pirna (Saxony) in 1955. She first did an apprenticeship in ceramics and then studied at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin from 1975 to 1980. Since then she has worked as a freelance ceramicist and sculptor. Hann has lived and worked in Wegendorf (Brandenburg) since 1992.
Frank Gottsmann was born in Kleinmachnow (Brandenburg) in 1956. From 1978 to 1982 he studied painting at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin. Between 1985 and 2003 he held numerous teaching positions, including at the Potsdam College of Advertising and Design, the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences and the Academy of Design in Crafts in Brandenburg/Havel. In 1990 he was a co-founder of the Potsdamer Künstlerverein e.V. and in 1991 he received a working scholarship from the Stiftung Kulturfonds. Gottsmann lives and works in Berlin and Neumeichow/Uckermark (Brandenburg).
Karol Broniatowski was born in 1945 in Łódź (Poland). From 1964 to 1970 he studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw as a master student of Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz. In 1972 he was invited to represent Poland at the 26th Venice Biennale. As a DAAD scholarship holder he moved to the current premises of the Kunsthaus Dahlem in 1976. This was followed by participation in the 1981 Biennale in São Paulo and the design of the fountain at Franz-Neumann-Platz in Berlin in 1984. In 1985 he was awarded second prize for the memorial design of the synagogue in Lewetzowstraße in Berlin. In 1991 he created one of his most important memorials to the deported Jews in Berlin at Grunewald station. Broniatowski lives and works in Berlin.
The German painter and graphic artist Christa Böhme was born Christa Krefft in Berlin in 1940. From 1958 to 1961 she studied graphic arts at the Master School for Arts and Crafts in Berlin-Charlottenburg. This was followed by studies in painting and graphic arts from 1961 to 1963 at the University of the Fine Arts, Berlin (West). In 1964 she moved to East Berlin and lived and worked freelance in Berlin-Pankow. A study trip took her to the Soviet Union in 1977. From 1977 to 1980 she was a master student of Wilhelm Schmied at the Academy of Arts of the GDR, and in 1980 she took up a teaching position at the Weissensee University of the Arts, Berlin (East). In 1991 Böhme chose to end her life.
Ellen Fuhr was born in Berlin in 1958. After training as a biology lab technician, she studied painting and graphic arts at the University of Fine Arts in Dresden under Gerhard Kettner from 1978 to 1983. From 1986 to 1989 she was Kettner’s master student at the Academy of Arts of the GDR. In addition to numerous exhibitions, she participated in 1987/88 in the X. Art Exhibition of the GDR in Dresden. As a member of the Pankow Artists Group, she was also part of the Forum Amalienpark Gallery founded by Gerhard Wolf in 1997. She lived and worked in Berlin and on Hiddensee. Fuhr passed away in Berlin in 2017.
Gerhard Kurt Müller was born in Leipzig in 1926. In 1948 he began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig with Elisabeth Voigt and Kurt Massloff. This was followed by a teaching position and professorship at the university from 1964 to 1968, at the same time he was also the rector there from 1964 to 1966. In 1968 he left the university and worked as a freelance painter and graphic artist in Leipzig. In 1988 he took part in the Venice Biennale. In 2004, he founded the non-profit Gerhard Kurt Müller Foundation with Ilse Stein. Müller died in Leipzig in 2019.
Gabriele Lina Gabriel-Thieler was born in Munich in 1958. From 1976 to 1981 she studied painting at the University of Arts in West Berlin, and was a master student of K. H. Hödicke. In 1979 she had her first exhibition in Berlin as the youngest member of the Galerie am Moritzplatz. In 1982 she stayed in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) on a scholarship and in the following years undertook study trips to Argentina, Brazil, Japan and Chile. Gabriel-Thieler lives and works in Berlin.
The Berlin artist Rolf Sturm was born in Braunschweig in 1939. From 1960 to 1965 he studied at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin, graduating in 1965 as a master student. He then worked for two years as an art teacher and guest lecturer in Berlin. From 1968 to 1972 he was a freelancer and founded the gallery “Zentrifuge” in Berlin. In his work, Sturm casts doubt on the everyday and reflects the familiar in often funny, distorted mirror images. He had numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad. Until his death in 2021 he ran his own art gallery in Albrechtstrasse Berlin.
Burghild Eichheim was born in 1936 in Bad Urach (Baden-Württemberg). In 1955 she began studying at the State Academy of Fine Art in Stuttgart moving to the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin in 1958, where she became a master student under Max Kaus in 1963. From that time she has worked as a freelance painter and graphic artist and a member of the European Women’s Academy of Arts and Sciences in Berlin-Brandenburg since 2007. Eichheim lives and works in Berlin.
Barbara Keidel was born in 1939 in Berlin. She studied at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin and was a master student under Ludwig Gabriel Schrieber. She received the Prize of the Karl Hofer Gesellschaft, West Berlin in 1965. In 1986 Keidel became a member of the Neue Gruppe in Munich. She received the Lithography Prize of the Society of Original Etching in Munich in 1996 and a year later the working scholarship of Villa Waldberta, Feldafing. She taught at the Chinese-German Art Academy in Hangzhou (China) in 2008. Keidel died in Berlin in 2021.