Over the years, a significant private collection of paintings and prints by artists such as Peter Graf, Karin Graf, Peter Herrmann, Strawalde, A. R. Penck, Agathe Böttcher, Peter Makolis, Otto Dix, Hermann Glöckner, Hans Jüchsner, and Wilhelm Lachnit has come together — the result of close connections with artists from the independent Dresden art scene of the former GDR. Artists like Otto Dix, Hermann Glöckner, and Wilhelm Lachnit carried the spirit of modern art through the Nazi era into the postwar years. In the 1950s, a new generation of artists emerged who rebelled against the rigid academic teachings at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. The central figure of this group was Jürgen Böttcher, who later became known as Strawalde. In the early 1950s, he taught a painting and drawing class at the Dresden Adult Education Center (Volkshochschule), encouraging young artists to seek their own paths. Among his students were Ralf Winkler (who would later take the name A. R. Penck in 1968), Peter Herrmann, Peter Makolis, and Peter Graf. These artists frequently collaborated — for example, within the artists’ collective Lücke or the Obergrabenpresse. Through personal relationships, particularly with Peter Graf and Peter Herrmann, a remarkable collection of paintings and prints by these Dresden artists came into being, with a particular focus on those involved in the alternative, GDR-critical art project "Obergrabenpresse".