Arno Rink was born in 1940 in Schlotheim, Thuringia, Germany. He began studying art in 1958 at the Arbeiter- und Bauernfakultät Dresden, a faculty of the Technische Hochschule Dresden, one of East Germany’s institutions set up to prepare lower-class students for university. Then, from 1962 to 1967, he studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (Academy of Fine Arts) Leipzig. In 1975 he made the first of several trips to the Soviet Union and West Germany, as well as to Italy, India and Cuba. After postgraduate study and teaching as an assistant at the Leipzig Hochschule, Rink was appointed a professor and finally, in 1987, rector. In 1984 he was represented at the Venice Biennale. He was awarded East Germany’s national prize in 1986. In 1990, in reunified Germany, Rink was again voted rector of the Leipzig school, and he continued to work as pro-rector until 1997; in 2005 he was made professor emeritus. Among his students were Neo Rauch, Michael Triegel, Christoph Ruckhäberle and Tim Eitle. Arno Rink thus influenced a generation of younger Leipzig painters who can be associated with the New Leipzig School. He lives and works in Leipzig.
