German artist Thomas Riesner was born in Leipzig in 1971 and still lives there today. Starting in elementary school, he often veered toward painting "abstract" art, instead of concrete drawing. He retained this style and later changed it to "abstract figuration.” Riesner usually painted at home -- without any professional training or guidance. Riesner identifies with the Outsider art movement.

If it’s true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder happened to be Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich henchmen, then the likes of Kandinsky, Kirchner, Kokoschka, and Klee (and that’s just the early 20^th Century artistic giants whose names start with “K”) were in big trouble.  By the time the Nazi campaign to purge the world of modernist art ended, some 20,000 pieces were confiscated, hidden, sold, or destroyed.