Karl Horst Hödicke was born in Nuremberg in 1937. In 1945 his family fled to Vienna and returned to Germany only in 1957. Hödicke started to study architecture at TU Berlin in 1959, but after one semester went to Professor Thieler at the Berlin University of the Arts. The artist joined Künstlergruppe Vision, a group of artists, in 1961 and after finishing his studies in 1964 opened the legendary Galerie Großgörschen 35, among others with Markus Lüpertz and Bernd Koberling. In 1966 Hödicke went to America for 2 years where he produced several experimental short movies. After returning from America he received a scholarship from the Villa Massimo in 1968. Karl Horst Hödicke also started to experiment with plastic processes, e.g. during the making of his work "Kalter Fluss" (1972). In this process he used black tar coming out of buckets hanging on the wall or the ceiling. In 1974 the Berlin University of Arts appointed him professor where he had his own painting class until 2005. Karl Horst Hödicke is considered to be one of the pioneers of German neoexpressionism and Neue Figuration (New Figuration).The artist dies in February 2024 in Berlin.