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.
Strawalde was born Jürgen Böttcher in 1931 in Frankenberg (Saxony) and grew up in Strahwalde. From 1949 to 1953 he studied painting at the Academy of Art in Dresden, and from 1955 to 1960 film-directing at the German Academy of Cinematic Art in Potsdam-Babelsberg. Until 1991 he worked at the DEFA documentary film studio in Berlin. A film retrospective of his was held in Paris in 1986 and in Frankfurt am Main in 1989. He has received numerous awards such as the 1979 National Prize of the GDR, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and in 2022 the Jerg Ratgeb Prize. Strawalde lives and works in Berlin.
Norbert Bisky wurde 1970 in Leipzig geboren. Von 1994 bis 1999 studierte er an der Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, bei Georg Baselitz, bei dem er auch sein Meisterschülerstudium absolvierte. Von 2008 bis 2010 war er Gastprofessor an der Haute École d’Art et de Design, Genf, von 2016 bis 2018 an der Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig. 2013 gestaltete er das Bühnenbild für das Staatsballett Berlin (Halle am Berghain), Berlin. 2015 arbeitete er in Tel Aviv. Bisky lebt und arbeitet in Berlin.
Barbara Quandt was born in 1947 in Berlin. From 1970 to 1976 she studied at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin under Hans Kuhn and K. H. Hödicke. From 1978 to 1979 a DAAD Scholarship took her to the St Martins School of Art in London, and a PS1 Scholarship to New York in 1982. In 2003 she began to teach at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Arts in Halle (Saale). Since 2008 Quandt has lived and worked in Lehnitz (Brandenburg) and Berlin.
Elvira Bach was born in 1951 in Neuenhain, Taunus (Hesse). She studied painting at the University of Arts in West Berlin, under Hann Trier from 1972 to 1979, alongside the co-founders of the Galerie am Moritzplatz. During her studies she worked at the Berlin Schaubühne theatre. Afterwards, a scholarship took her to the Dominican Republic. Participation in documenta 7 in Kassel in 1982 brought about her international breakthrough. Bach lives and works in Berlin.