Rainer Maria Latzke

Rainer Maria Latzke
Rainer Maria Latzke while being interviewed by Shijue.me/Visual China
Born	(1950-12-28) 28 December 1950 (age 66) Frohngau, Germany
Nationality	German
Education	University of Mainz, Academy of Fine Arts, Duesseldorf
Known for	Painting, Muralist,
Movement	Surrealism, Renaissance art, Trompe-l'œil, Mural painting

Rainer Maria Latzke (born 28 December 1950) is a German artist working in the field of Trompe l'oeil and mural painting. He taught at the Utah State University and is founder of the Institute of Frescography. Latzke is Honorary Professor of the Fudan University, Shanghai and Guest Professor of the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art . Latzke is named by the Forbes magazine as one of the most influential painters of the 90´s decade and ranked by Artists Trade Union of Russia amongst the world-best artists of the last four centuries. He is a cousin of Poland´s wealthiest entrepreneur Jan Kulczyk.

Rainer Maria Latzke was born in Germany in 1950. He was raised near Cologne along with his 8 siblings by his Father Alfons, an art teacher, and his mother Lisa who was also an artist. His father´s family comes from Poland, while his mother was a born Kohlschütter, a family of famous scientists such as Arnold and Ernst Kohlschütter. Latzke studied art, Philosophy, and Educational Science at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz Germany, and then continued Art studies from 1972 to 1976 at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts under the supervision of Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter.

In 1974 he earned a master's degree in Pedagogy, Philosophy and in 1976 the title of a Master Student as well as a master's degree in Arts. After teaching art for two years, he quit and traveled to Italy in 1980 where he studied Renaissance painting techniques and fresco painting in Florence and Rome. In 1981 he married Doris Boecke, with whom he had three children, Rene Marcus (born 1981), who is married to English artist Paula Hammond, Katharina Maria (born 1983) and Maurice Amadeus (born 1985). In 2008 his first grandchild, Tristan Francis, was born to Katharina who is married to US citizen Paul Smith.