Walter Womacka Dies

The Berlin periodical Neues Deutschland published news of the death of painter and muralist Walter Womacka, a leading "state artist" in the former East Germany, in Berlin on Saturday, September 18, at the age of 84 after a long illness, according to a source from the artist¿s family. Some of Womacka's large-scale works formerly decorated the facades of buildings in the eastern part of Berlin. His most famous work was the oil entitled Am Strand (On the Beach). Three million prints of this painting were reproduced and a postage stamp with the image-12 million of these were issued¿was also created. Womacka was born in 1925 in what is now the Czech Republic. One of the most famous artists in communist East Germany, his works were framed in the purest style of Socialist Realism. His style was characterized by thick brushstrokes and lively colors. He became one of the official portrait painters of Walter Ulbricht, the Head of the State and of the Communist Party. For more than twenty years, Womacka was Director of the School of Fine Arts, Berlin-Weissensee, located well inside the eastern sector of the Berlin. Georg Baselitz was one of his students. Between 1959 and 1988, Womacka headed Eastern Germany's Association of Visual Artists. He was loyal to the Communist regime even after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), whose construction he defended in his autobiography published in 2004.