Bert Heller

Bert Heller (30 March 1912 – 29 April 1970) was a German painter and illustrator who for two years in the later 1950s served as Rector of the Fine Arts Academy in the Weissensee district of Berlin. Heller's reputation as an artist is based primarily on his portraits, water colours and posters.

Life Bert Heller was born in Aachen, where in 1927 he enrolled for three years as a student at the Fine Arts Academy (as the institution was known at the time). One of his teachers was . On completing his three years at the academy he undertook a study tour that took in the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria, before embarking on a career as a freelance artist based in Laurensberg (Aachen), very close to Germany's Dutch frontier. He also produced some high-profile murals. Between 1940 and 1942 he studied under at the Munich Fine Arts Academy. according to the historian Hiltrud Ebert. "He struggled against the mental narrowness at the academy, and rebelled in the face of uniformity". Heller's appointment to the academy's top job had come in the wake of the "political thaw" announced in 1955, but his dismissal two years later was an indication that the thaw was powerfully circumscribed by the enduring requirements of The Party.

Between 1958 and his death in 1970 Bert Heller worked as a freelance artist in Berlin. He had never officially been disgraced and appears to have been at least partially rehabilitated following his removal from the academic establishment, and was permitted to visit China for a study tour in 1963.

Awards and honours 1951: National Prize of East Germany 1963: Arts Prize of the Trades Union Federation 1964: National Prize of East Germany 1965: Fellowship of the Academy of Arts