Robert Gernhardt was a German writer, painter, graphic artist and poet.
Background
Robert Gernhardt was born the son of a judge and a chemist in Tallinn, where his family was part of the Baltic German minority. In 1945 his father was killed in the war, and after the end of the war his mother fled west with her three sons Robert, Per and Andreas, finally ending up in Göttingen, where Robert Gernhardt finished school in 1956.
Education
Afterwards he studied painting, first in Stuttgart and then at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, also doing German Studies at Berlin"s Freie Universität.
Career
In 1939 they had to relocate to Poznań. Beginning in 1964, he live in Frankfurt, working as a freelance artist and writer Since purchasing a house in Tuscany in 1972, he regularly spent many months in Italy.
In 1996 he had to undergo a multiple bypass operation and, in 2002, he was diagnosed with Colorectal cancer, which he succumbed to in 2006.