Gerhard Richter
Painter
Top-selling photo-painter and abstract artist whose best-known works included "Atlas" and "Baader-Meinhof." One of the pioneers of the New European Painting movement. Sought to emulate Picasso and Jean Arp's philosophy of never being trapped by one artistic style.
He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, Germany. He apprenticed with a sign painter, a photographer, and a painter from 1949 until 1951.
He designed a 66-foot-tall stained glass window at the Cologne Cathedral.
His family was residing in Dresden, Saxony, when he was born; they raised him in Reichenau, Lower Silesia, and in the Upper Lusatian countryside. He married his third wife Sabine Moritz-Richter in 1995.
He created 48 portraits of author Franz Kafka.