Lea Grundig

Lea Grundig (Dresden, 23 March 1906 – 10 October 1977, at sea) was a German painter and graphic artist.

Life Lea Langer was born in the old central heart of Dresden, where she grew up as part of the city's Jewish community. Her father was a joiner/furniture maker and her mother worked in garment manufacturing. Lea attended school locally between 1912 and 1922, while rejecting, even as a young girl, the family's religious orthodoxy. She went on to study at the city's Decorative Arts and Crafts Academy before progressing, in 1924, to the prestigious Saxon Art Academy: here she was admitted into the Masterclass of Otto Gussmann where fellow participants included Otto Griebel, Wilhelm Lachnit and Hans Grundig. She remained at The Academy till 1926.

1926 was the year in which she joined the Communist Party (KPD). She was also a co-founder of the Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists (ARBKD / Assoziation revolutionärer bildender Künstler Deutschlands).

In 1935 a ban was imposed on exhibits of her work in a prison in Dresden. However, on her release she was granted an emigration permit. Lea Grundig in her autobiography (1958)

Lea Grundig traveled to Europe at the end of the year, living for a few months in Prague before returning to Dresden in February 1949: she received a professorship later in the year, teaching in 1949/50 at the Dresden Fine Arts Academy. However, the prize ceased to be awarded after 1996. Following German reunification in 1990, several members of the Caspar David Friedrich Institute contended that naming a prize for "Lea Grundig", an unapologetic member of East Germany's discredited cultural and political establishment, could not be seen as acceptable. The ensuing arguments continued for some years, but at the start of 2011 the University of Greifswald was able to pass the assets of Hans and Lea Grundig Foundation to the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. The Rosa Luxembourg Foundation undertook to award the Lea Grundig prize in a contemporary manner that would respect the sensibilities of Lea Grundig.

Selected publications Begei Haharegah (In the valley of slaughter), Tel Aviv, 1944. (Copy held in the Wiener Library, London) Heiner, Maria and Rose, Dirk: Lea Grundig - The witch folder. Galerie Rose, Hamburg, (German), 2009. Heiner, Maria: Lea Grundig - Art for the People. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin/Leipzig, (2nd revised edition, German), 2019. Heiner, Maria: Lea Grundig - Art for the People. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin/Leipzig, (English), 2020. Heiner, Maria: Lea Grundig - Under the Swastika. Etchings from the 1930s from the Maria Heiner Collection, Dresden. Exhibition catalogue,(German), 2022 . Heiner, Maria (ed.) and Mendelsohn, Tina: Lea Grundig - Under the Rainbow, Illustrations from Hebrew children's and young adult books, Hentrich & Hentrich, Leipzig/Berlin, (German), 2023.