Fritz Winter was born in 1905 in Altenbögge near Unna (North Rhine-Westphalia). From 1927 to 1930 he studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau. In 1931 he became a teacher at the Education Academy in Halle/Saale (Saxony-Anhalt). In the 1950s he co-founded the Zen 49 artists’ group and took part in the first three documenta exhibitions in Kassel. From 1955 to 1970 he taught as a professor at the State Academy for Fine Arts in Kassel. In addition to numerous awards, he received the Grand Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1974. Winter died in Herrsching on the Ammersee (Bavaria) in 1976.
Britta von Willert was born in 1980 in Kulmbach (Bavaria). From 2001 she studied painting at the Weissensee University of the Arts in Berlin, and in 2008 was a master student of Werner Liebmann. Von Willert lives and works in Berlin.
Berndt Wilde was born in 1946 in Mildensee near Dessau (Saxony-Anhalt). From 1965 to 1970 he studied sculpture at the Academy of Art in Dresden. In 1974 he moved to East Berlin, where he was a master student of Werner Stötzer from 1980 to 1983 at the Academy of Arts of the GDR. In the early 1990s he taught at the Weissensee University of the Arts in Berlin and the University of Arts in Berlin. From 1993 to 2014 he was professor of sculpture in Weissensee. Wilde lives and works in Berlin.
Werner Stötzer was born in 1931 in Sonneberg (Thuringia). In 1948 he began his studies in Weimar and continued from 1951 to 1953 at the University of Fine Arts in Dresden. From 1954 to 1958 he was a master student at the German Academy of Arts, East Berlin, under Gustav Seitz. From 1987 to 1990 he taught there as a professor. In addition to the Will Lammert Prize, the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Academy of Arts of the GDR and the National Prize of the GDR, in 2008 he received the Brandenburg Art Prize for his life’s work. Stötzer died in 2010 in the Oderbruch (Brandenburg).
Hans Uhlmann was born in 1900 in Berlin. After studying mechanical engineering, from 1926 to 1933 he was assistant to Max Kloß at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. In 1933 he was arrested for distributing anti-fascist flyers. After his release, his art was condemned as “degenerate”. In 1950 he received the Berlin Art Prize – Jubilee Foundation 1848/1948 and later took part several times in documenta. From 1950 to 1968 he taught as a professor at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin. In 1975 Uhlmann died in Berlin.
Klaus-Peter Vellguth was born in 1960 in Nuremberg. From 1983 to 1989 he studied painting at the University of Arts, West Berlin, where he was a master student of Wolfgang Petrick. From 1994 to 1997 he taught lithography at the University of Arts, Berlin. From that time he has worked as head of the lithography workshop in the print shop of the Association of Berlin Artists. Vellguth lives and works in Berlin.
Hans Vent was born in 1934 in Weimar (Thuringia). From 1948 was an apprentice painter and decorator, and from 1952 attended the School of Building Technology in Weimar. In 1958 he began his study of painting at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin. From 1976 to 1982 he taught there. In 1977 he was awarded the Art Prize of the GDR, the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Academy of Arts of the GDR in 1982. Vent died in Berlin in 2018.
In 2019 the Hans Vent Foundation was established in the Dr Walter and Margarete Cajewitz Foundation.
Wolf Vostell was born in 1932 in Leverkusen (North Rhine-Westphalia). From 1955 to 1957 he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and in 1958 at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf. In the 1960s he was part of the Fluxus movement and performed his first “happening”. He participated in the 1968 Biennale in Venice. In 1974 and 1975 the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Nationalgalerie in West Berlin devoted a first retrospective to his work. In 1978 he took part in documenta 6 in Kassel. He was awarded the Hannah Höch Prize in 1997. From 1977 he divided his time between Berlin and Malpartida de Cáceres (Spain), where the Museo Vostell was opened in 1994. Vostell died in 1998 in Berlin.
Ralf-Rainer Wasse was born in 1942 in Nobitz near Altenburg (Thuringia). From 1968 to 1973 he studied photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig. After his studies he was employed at the District Office for Cultural Work in Leipzig until 1975. Between 1977 and 1982 he became a member of the Clara Mosch artists’ group and self-help gallery in Karl-Marx-Stadt (today Chemnitz, Saxony). In 2012 his comprehensive photographic archive was acquired by the Lindenau Museum in Altenburg. Wasse died in 2017.
Ulla Walter was born in 1955 in Meiningen (Thuringia). In 1976 she was admitted to the painting course at the Academy of Art in Dresden, which she did not complete. In 1978 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig under Bernhard Heisig and took part in his master class from 1981 to 1984. She moved to East Berlin in 1983. Among the awards she has received are the working scholarship of the Käthe Dorsch Foundation and the Brandenburg Art Prize. Walter lives and works in Schöneiche near Berlin.