Daniel Richter is one of Germany's most important contemporary painters and is successful as well.

His paintings sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2007, Sotheby's NY sold one for $824,000. But he looks and behaves like a young revolutionary student. Among art students, he's popular like a famous rock star. He's married to Angela, a theater director who it seems has a lot of influence on his paintings, which do have a rock and roll-type theatrical flair.

In his youth, he used to belong to a radical left-wing political group that used to invade deserted buildings in Hamburg. This group fell apart after accomplishing nothing. After attaining his fame, Richter was successful in persuading the City of Hamburg to allow artists to use these deserted buildings for studios. During his early life he didn't do much, he says, until he decided to study art, at age 30! He chose painting because it seemed easy to do, and he was not reliant on other people. In painting, he found freedom. If it was expected of him to paint figuratively, he would paint abstractly. It was only after 5 years of painting abstractly that he began to make money by painting humans, animals, and guitars. 

Richter calls it: "The transition from free jazz to pop."