Raimund Girke was born in Heinzendorf, Lower Silesia, in 1930. He studied at the Werkschule Hannover and the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf. Having overcome the subjectivism of abstract realism, Girke became one of the influential proponents of Analytical and Fundamental Painting through his engagement with the colour white. In 1977 he took part in documenta VI in Kassel. He received the 1959 Painting Prize of the City of Wolfsburg; the 1962 Youth Art Prize of the City of Stuttgart; the 1995 Lovis Korinth Prize and the 2002 Lower Saxon Art Price. In 1966 he taught at the Werkkunstschule Hannover; from 1971 he was Professor of Free Painting at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. Girke died in Cologne in 2002.
