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.
Andreas Weishaupt was born in 1957 in Düsseldorf. From 1978 he studied at the University of Fine Arts in Braunschweig under Hermann Albert and Alfred Winter-Rust. He moved to West Berlin in the 1980s. In this period he maintained contact with the artists of the Neue Wilde group. Weishaupt lives in Frankfurt am Main.
Jürgen Wenzel was born in 1950 in Annaberg in the Erzgebirge (Saxony). He served an apprenticeship at the State Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen from 1967 to 1971, where he worked until 1975. This was followed in 1980 by studies at the Academy of Art in Dresden. He established a studio house in Dresden-Blasewitz where he ran a cooperative print shop. The graphics studio moved in 1992 to Burgstädtel (Saxony), where Wenzel lived and worked from 1998. He died in 2023.
Max Uhlig was born in 1937 in Dresden. From 1955 to 1960 he studied graphic art at the Academy of Art in Dresden. Until 1963 he was a master student of Hans Theo Richter. He received the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Academy of Arts of the GDR in 1987. He was professor at the Academy of Art in Dresden from 1995 to 2002. In 2003 he received the Art Prize of the State Capital Dresden, and the Art Prize of the Chemnitz Foundation in Honour of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff in 2020. Uhlig lives and works in Dresden.
Werner Tübke was born in 1929 in Schönebeck on the Elbe (Saxony-Anhalt). From 1948 to 1949 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig, then at the University of Greifswald. He received awards including the Art Prize of the City of Leipzig, the National Prize of the GDR and the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Academy of Arts of the GDR. He was appointed professor at the Leipzig Academy in 1972 and was its rector from 1973 to 1976. After this he began work on the monumental circular painting about the Peasant Wars in the Panorama Museum at Bad Frankenhausen (Thuringia). Tübke died in Leipzig in 2004.
The Tübke Foundation was established in Leipzig in 2006.
Heinz Trökes was born in 1913 in Hamborn on the Rhine (North Rhine-Westphalia). From 1933 to 1936 he completed studies at the School of Applied Art in Krefeld. After the war he maintained contact to the Dutch COBRA group. He participated several times in documenta in Kassel and the Biennale in Venice. After a number of teaching appointments he became a professor at the University of the Fine Arts in West Berlin in 1965. The recipient of numerous prizes, in 1983 he was given a retrospective at the Nationalgalerie in West Berlin. Trökes died in Berlin in 1997.
Ursula Strozynski was born in 1954 in Dingelstädt near Eichsfeld (Thuringia). From 1972 to 1976 she studied architecture at the Technical University in Dresden and then worked as an architect in East Berlin. Since 1977 she has been a freelance painter and graphic artist, and took part in the Art Exhibition of the GDR in Dresden in 1982. Until 2012 she taught at the Marburg Summer Academy. Strozynski lives and works in Berlin.