The first origins of the Leipzig School are rooted in the city's art scene in the 1960s. The main representatives of the Leipzig School (Leipziger Schule) were
Werner Tübke (1929-2004),
Wolfgang Mattheuer (1927-2004) and
Bernhard Heisig (1925-2011). All three studied at the Leipzig art academy, the HGB,
Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (University for Graphics and Book Art) and became professors there themselves in the 1960s and 1970s. Two currents can be distinguished. Heisig's works belong to a group of expressive and colorfully passionate pictures. The second group, to which Mattheuer and Tübke are counted, is more factual and formally strict. All three were repeatedly attacked by the political leadership, only to be courted again at other times. The art of the GDR has the Leipzig School to thank for the fact that the framework of socialist realism prescribed by the party was abandoned in the 1970s and 1980s. Their idiosyncratic imagery made Leipzig a respected center of
fine arts in the
GDR and thus laid the foundation for the international reputation of the so-called
New Leipzig School since 2004. ==Further reading==