Claim: Gerhard Richter escaped to West Germany before the building of the Berlin Wall and his painting were painted over for ideological reasons.
Evidence: Gerhard Richter (German: [ˈʁɪçtɐ; born 9 February 1932) is a German visual artist. Together with his wife Marianne, Richter escaped from East to West Germany two months before the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Both his wall paintings in the Academy of Arts and the Hygiene Museum were then painted over for ideological reasons.