Helmut Sturm was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 painter.

He was born in Furth im Wald

Furth im Wald

Furth im Wald is a town in the District of Cham, in Bavaria, Germany, near the Czech border. It is situated in the Bavarian Forest, 16 km northeast of Cham, and 17 km southwest of Domažlice....

. From 1952 to 1958 he studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste

Academy of Fine Arts, Munich

The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich was founded 1808 by Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria in Munich as the "Royal Academy of Fine Arts" and is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany...

, Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

. After this he joined Heimrad Prem

Heimrad Prem

Heimrad Prem was a German painter born in Roding, Oberpfalz. From 1949 - 1952 he studied decorative painting at Schwandorf and then studied painting with Josef Oberberger and sculpture with Toni Stadler at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich until 1956...

, Lothar Fischer

Lothar Fischer

Lothar Fischer was a German sculptor.He was born in Germersheim, Palatinate. Between 1952 and 1958 he studied under Professor Heinrich Kirchner at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich...

 and Hans-Peter Zimmer

Hans-Peter Zimmer

Hans-Peter Zimmer was a German painter and sculptor. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich....

 in founding Gruppe SPUR

Gruppe SPUR

Gruppe SPUR was an artistic collaboration formed by the German painters Heimrad Prem, Helmut Sturm and Hans-Peter Zimmer and the sculptor Lothar Fischer in 1957...

, which in 1959 entered the Situationist International. He had a six month scholarship in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 before returning to Munich for the SPUR exhibition in Galerie van de Loo. He collaborated with Hans Platschek, Asger Jorn

Asger Jorn

Asger Oluf Jorn was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International...

, Jørgen Nash

Jørgen Nash

Jørgen Nash was a Danish artist, writer and central proponent of situationism. He was born in Vejrum, Jutland, Denmark, baptized Jørgen Axel Jørgensen, the brother of Asger Jorn. He later changed his family name from Jørgensen to Nash. He was married three times and has six children...

, Constant

Constant Nieuwenhuys

Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys was a Dutch painter, and one of the foremost innovators of Unitary Urbanism. In 1941, he became deeply interested in the work of Paul Cézanne, Cubism and German Expressionism....

, Maurice Wyckaert

Maurice Wyckaert

Maurice Wyckaert was a Belgian artist, born in 1923, in the city of Brussels. He is a neo-expressionistic, lyrical abstract painter, gouache designer and printmaker. Enjoyed his education at the Academy of Brussels and in Sint-Joost-ten-Node and the Vrije Atelier of Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe...

, Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio and Guy Debord

Guy Debord

Guy Ernest Debord was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International . He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.-Early Life:Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931...

. In 1961 he stayed with Nash at Oerkelljunga, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 with Prem, Zimmer and Dieter Kunzelmann

Dieter Kunzelmann

Dieter Kunzelmann is a German left-wing activist. In the early 1960s he was a member of the Situationist-inspired artists' group Gruppe SPUR. He was one of the founders of Kommune 1 in 1967. At the end of the 1960s he was one of the leaders of the Tupamaros West-Berlin, which carried out...

.

After the SPUR group was expelled from the Situationist International, they continued to do collaborative work, linking up with Wir in 1966 to form Geflecht. Sturm developed colorspatial anti-objects and had his first solo exhibition in the Galerie van de Loo, Munich.

From 1970 he worked as an Art educator, developing a Child Forum with Galerie van de Loo. In 1975 he set up the Kollektiv Herzogstrasse with Prem. From 1980 - 1982 he was guest professor at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, taking over Hann Trier's class. He continued to exhibit across Germany and from 1985 to 1998 was professor at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich. He died in February 2008 in Munich.