Reinhard Dietrich

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Reinhard Dietrich (14 February 1932 – 7 March 2015) was a German sculptor. He was born in Breslau, a city that would later become Wrocław, Poland, just as the Nazi government began. From 1946 to 1950 he lived in Wittenberg in the Soviet occupation zone, where he learned wood carving as an apprentice. He then studied at the Wood Carving Academy in Empfertshausen (1950–1952) and spent two to three years at the College of Applied Arts in Leipzig (1952–1954). In Leipzig he studied with Rudolf Oelzner and Alfred Thiele. He then moved to the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts to study with Hans Steger and Walter Arnold. From 1958 to 1964 Dietrich worked as a freelance artist in Dresden, at one point sharing a workshop with Wieland Förster. In 1964 he moved to the north coast, living in Kneese (Bad Sülze), near Rostock. He stayed in the Rostock region for almost forty years and produced much of his best work there. Some pieces can be seen around Rostock, and some Rostock-era works were made in collaboration with Jo Jastram. With his wife Magda, he returned to Dresden in 2003, where he died in 2015.