Gina Gass

Gina Gass was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1946. In 1948 her family moved to East Berlin. Gina majored in cultural studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Following in the footsteps of her father, a well-known documentary filmmaker, she then worked as a director’s assistant at the DEFA and as a documentarist at the Berlin Film Archives. She did not start painting until 1975. At the home of friends she met a painter, Eberhard Hückstädt, who took notice of her talent. In his studio in Schwedt on the Oder, Gina Gass received her artistic training. In 1980 she became a member of the of the Association of Figurative Artists – in former East Germany, an unavoidable prerequisite for obtaining commissions from the government. She created paintings for a kindergarten, a women’s clinic. In 1984 she emigrated with her family from Schwedt on the Oder to Hannover, in West Germany, which allowed her to finally be able to travel and visit many locales of art history.