Ralf Winkler (1939), alias A.R. Penck, is a German painter, printmaker and sculptor.
Penck was born in Dresden, former East Germany, where he later studied together with a group of other neo-expressionist painters. He became one of the foremost exponents of the New Figuration, alongside Jörg Immendorff, Georg Baselitz and Markus Lüpertz. Under the Communist regime of the GDR they were watched by the secret police (the Stasi) and considered dissidents. In the late 1970s they were included in shows in West Berlin and were seen as champions of free speech in the East. Their work was shown by major museums and galleries outside the GDR throughout the 1980s. They were included in a number of important shows including the famous Zeitgeist exhibition in the well-known Martin Gropius Bau museum (Berlin) and the respected New Art show at the Tate in 1983 (London).
In the 1980s Penck gained recognition for his paintings with pictographic, neo-primitivist imagery of human figures and other totemic forms. He has been involved in many important shows, world-wide.