Expressionist painter and printmaker Conrad Felixmüller was born on May 21, 1897, in Dresden in what was then the German Empire. He studied at the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts (1911-1912) and then at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts under Carl Bantzer, with further private studies in the workshop of Ferdinand Dorsch. Following graduation he worked briefly as an independent artist in Dresden and Berlin, making illustrations for Der Sturm to support himself and participating in his first exhibition at the Der Sturm Gallery in 1916.

After compulsory military service in 1917-'18 during World War I, serving as a medical orderly, he cofounded the Expressionistische Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dresden artists' group and published an art and literary journal titled Menschen with Felix Steimer. He settled in Dresden in 1918 and founded the Dresden Sezession and became a member of the Novembergruppe. Printmaking was his primary focus early in his career, in part owning to its use in illustration. In the 1920s he illustrated his own books and various left-wing periodicals alongside his creative output, and was known for his social realism, addressing the horrors of war and its aftermath in the Weimar Republic. Between 1919 and 1920, he mentored the artist Otto Dix in printmaking techniques.

As the totalitarian regime began to gain traction in Germany, Felixmüller's work became more restrained and he began to move away from abstracted imagery into genre works, openly rejecting Impressionism and Expressionism and any other styles that replaced classical ideals. Despite these efforts, his work was labeled "degenerate" and forty pieces were seized by Nazis and displayed in the infamous 1933 "Entartete Kunst" show in Dresden. He then moved to Berlin-Charlottenburg, hoping for a more liberal art scene. Soon thereafter, however, over 150 of his works were confiscated in 1937, and in 1941 the bombing of his studio further depleted his oeuvre. In 1944 he was called up for military service once more, and was made a Russian prisoner of war in 1945. One of his works wasn't found until the discovery of the now-famous "Munich art hoard" of 2012, in which a major collection of confiscated art - dubbed the "Gurlitt Collection" - was discovered in the possesion of a Nazi heir. 

Following the war, Felixmüller took up a teaching position at the University of Halle, where he worked until 1961, when he retired and returned to Berlin. He kept making prints and by 1976 he had made 461 woodcuts, 150 etchings, and eighty-eight lithographs. Thoughout his career he exhibited in Italy, France, and Germany, and his work now hangs in collections world wide, including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the MoMA, New York; the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; the Albertinum, Dresden; andmany more. 

Conrad Felixmüller died on March 24, 1977, in Berlin.