Lea Grundig

(née Langer). Born Mar. 23, 1906, in Dresden. German graphic artist, wife of H. Grundig.

Grundig studied at the Academy of Art in Dresden (1923–26). She joined the German Communist Party in 1926. During the Nazi regime she was prohibited from creating and exhibiting her works. She was arrested in 1936 and 1938 and left the country in 1939. She returned to Dresden in 1949. Grundig became a professor at the Higher School of Fine Art in 1950 and a member of the German Academy of Art in 1961. She was chairman of the German Artists’ Union during 1964–70. Grundig’s work is bound up with the labor movement, the struggle against fascism and militarism, and the building of socialism in the German Democratic Republic. It is alternately full of keen psychological expression and a wrathful protest (the cycles Under the Swastika, etchings, 1933–38; Never Again!, drawings, 1944–50; The Struggle Against Atomic Death, etchings, 1957–58) or a radiant luminous affirmation of life and pride in the labor achievements of the German Democratic Republic (the cycles Coal and Steel for Peace, lithographs, 1951; and Schwedt, drawings, 1967). Grundig received the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic (1958 and 1967).