A.R.Penck (born 1939 in Dresden, GDR - 2017 Zurich) Born Ralf Winkler, the artist adopted his pseudonym after reading the work of the geologist Albrecht Penck. A.R. Penck lived in East Berlin from 1963 to ’72; unable to exhibit there publicly, he smuggled works out to West Berlin and Switzerland, where he enjoyed enough fame to provide him some protection from the German police. Considered a Neo-Expressionist along with artists such as Sigmar Polke and Anselm Kiefer, A.R. Penck is best known for his paintings and sculptures characterized by simplified figures and forms, and neo-primitive symbols and patterns, which nod to both German Expressionists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Art Brut. Penck's standard works, which employ a lexicon of pictograph-like marks the artist referred to as "building blocks", are essential in understanding both his process and ideology

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