A. R. Penck (actually Ralf Winkler, * October 5, 1939 in Dresden; † May 2, 2017 in Zurich) was a German painter, graphic artist, sculptor and jazz musician.
From 1953 to 1954, A.R. Penck took painting and drawing lessons from Jürgen Böttcher (artist name Strawalde) and became a member of the artist group Erste Phalanx Nedserd. The group strived for artistic work without compromise. For this reason, the members of the artist group were denied the opportunity to study at an academy: from 1956 onwards, he applied unsuccessfully four times to the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and the Berlin (East) Academy of Fine and Applied Arts. The members of the artist group were also denied membership in the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR (VBK). They therefore had to earn a living as workers or craftsmen. From 1955 to 1956, Penck was an apprentice draftsman at DEWAG. After abandoning his apprenticeship, he worked as a stoker, night watchman, postman and minor actor, including in Jürgen Böttcher's film Jahrgang 45, which had already included him in his banned short documentary Drei von viele in 1961.
In 1966, he became a candidate for the VBK as A.R. Penck. He chose the pseudonym by which he would now become known after the geologist and ice age researcher Albrecht Penck; other later pseudonyms were Tancred Mitschel, Mike Hammer and Mickey Spilane. In 1969, the VBK rejected his admission. At the same time, he increasingly had problems with the GDR Ministry for State Security: Penck's pictures were confiscated. In May 1971, Penck founded the artists' group Lücke together with Steffen Terk, Wolfgang Opitz and Harald Gallasch, which existed until 1976. From 1973 he worked under the pseudonyms Mike Hammer and T.M. (also shortened: TM). After his military service in 1974 and especially the awarding of the Will Grohmann Prize in 1975 by the Academy of Arts in West Berlin, controls by the state security increased. In 1976 Penck met fellow West German painter Jörg Immendorff, with whom he worked together in the following years. In their work they campaigned for the abolition of the German-German border as well as for dissidents, including Rudolf Bahro and Robert Havemann. From 1977 customs confiscated Penck's paintings - he also signed with Y from 1976.
In May 1979, various works and notes were destroyed during a break-in at Penck's studio. On August 3, 1980 he was expatriated and moved to the West. He initially lived in Kerpen near Cologne. In 1981, the Goethe Foundation in Basel awarded him the Rembrandt Prize. In 1983, Penck moved to London and in 1985 was awarded the Aachen Art Prize. In 1984, he was represented at the exhibition Von hier aus – Zwei Monate neue deutsche Kunst in Düsseldorf. In 1988, he took part in the exhibition Made in Cologne, and in the same year he was appointed professor of painting at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. His students included Antje Dorn, Susanne Themlitz, Joanna Danovska, Yoshimoto Nara, Marta Klonowska, Gesine Kikol and Andrea C. Hoffer. After his retirement in 2003, Penck lived and worked in Dublin, Ireland.
