the german reich
Jacint Rigau-Ros i Serra, known in French as Hyacinthe Rigaud, was a Catalan-French baroque painter most famous for his portraits of Louis XIV and other members of the French nobility.
Candida Höfer is a German photographer. She is a former student of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Like other Becher students, Höfer's work is known for technical perfection and a strictly conceptual approach. From 1997 to 2000, she taught as professor at the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe. Höfer is the recipient of the 2018 Outstanding Contribution to Photography award, as part of the Sony World Photography awards. She is based in Cologne.
Ralf Winkler, alias A. R. Penck, was a German painter, printmaker, sculptor, and jazz drummer. A neo-expressionist, he became known for his visual style, reminiscent of the influence of primitive art.
Bernhard (Bernd) Becher and Hilla Becher were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures, often organised in grids. As the founders of what has come to be known as the 'Becher school' or the 'Düsseldorf School' they influenced generations of documentary photographers and artists. They have been awarded the Erasmus Prize and the Hasselblad Award.
Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer.
Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matters and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s, when he produced abstract works created by chance through chemical reactions between paint and other products. In the last 20 years of his life, he produced paintings focused on historical events and perceptions of them.