Werner Rataiczyk (23 June 1921 – 3 January 2021) was a German painter.

Biography

After an apprenticeship as a graphic designer and illustrator, Rataiczyk fought for

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he was a British prisoner of war until 1947 when he began studying at the Burg Giebichenstein School of Art and Design. After graduation, he joined the Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR. In the 1950s, Rataiczyk began the practice of abstract art, which went along with the culture of

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

. In 1952, he married the artist , with whom he had two children, Matthias and Marcella. In the 1960s and 70s, he worked on lithography, starting his own lithographic workshop. He also designed stained glass windows for Catholic and Protestant churches, as well as secular buildings. Werner Rataiczyk died in Halle on 3 January 2021 at the age of 99.

References

1921 births 2021 deaths German male painters 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United Kingdom People from Eisleben German abstract painters 20th-century German lithographers 21st-century German lithographers German stained glass artists and manufacturers German military personnel of World War II 21st-century German painters 21st-century German male artists {{Germany-painter-stub