Honecker

Mr. Honecker was out of a job, and Mr. Brezhnev was dead.

“When I first saw the Berlin Wall, I knew exactly what I wanted to paint: Brezhnev and Honecker,” he said in the 2013 interview.

With paint and a ladder, he recreated a larger-than-life version of a 1979 photo of a kiss between Mr. Brezhnev and Mr. Honecker.

Indeed, the painting’s satirical simplicity and power to shock were so resonant that it has often been copied, with other leaders subbing in for Mr. Brezhnev and Mr. Honecker.

Communist leader Erich Honecker had quit the previous month and on 4 November East Berlin saw more than half a million people flock to the central square Alexanderplatz demanding reform.