The art collection of the Humboldt University comprises a number of special portfolios containing works by students of art education. The former institute at the Humboldt Universität’s Faculty of Education taught art history and art education methodology as well as artistic practice for prospective art teachers. The political goal of educating students to become ‘all-round socialist personalities’ (allseitig gebildet[e] sozialistische Persönlichkeit, Klemm 2015, p. 49) and to ‘implement socialist realism as an art policy doctrine in society’ (sozialistischen Realismus als kunstpolitische Doktrin in der Gesellschaft einsetzen, ibid., 2015, p. 49) was also firmly anchored in this subject. The Department of Art History and Aesthetics at Humboldt University was thus tasked with shaping the new socialist personality through the arts and their scientific and educational accompaniment. Teachers in the field of art education therefore not only had to be artistically accomplished, but also socially engaged (e.g. as leaders of so-called circles in which lay people were instructed in artistic creation) and, of course, committed to Marxism-Leninism in terms of their intellectual and ideological beliefs – after all, they were training future art teachers.

For artistic practice, which was taught at the HU by visual artists (Hermann Bruse, Dietrich Kunth, Johannes Prusko, Gerenot Richter, Erhardt Schmidt, Norbert Weinke, Barbara Müller, Wolfgang Frankenstein, among others), the guidelines were relatively vague. They were to deal with life-affirming subjects, themes such as nature, homeland and the construction of socialist life, and in doing so to try out different techniques and materials. The works on industrial landscapes, recreational and private life, holidays, village views or motifs of the reconstruction of Berlin seem to follow this guideline. There is evidence that printing techniques such as etching, linocut and woodcut were practised, as well as drawing techniques using ink and charcoal and oil painting.

One exemplary group of early works shows the implementation of the curriculum requirements quite clearly: industrial pictures created in the sponsoring company of the HU, the ‘Glückauf’ lignite factory in Knappenrode. Eva-Maria Mancke, a lecturer at the Institute of Art Education in the field of artistic practice, describes this form of ‘active participation in everyday socialist life’ in detail – and probably also somewhat embellished – in an article about the students’ 14-day work assignment:

We found a willingness to help and understanding, and that helped us over many a cliff, because back pain and blisters on the hands are not the pleasant side of a job. Nevertheless, there was no hanging of heads. […] We found our motifs in the factory, in the overburden and on the assembly site, and we drew and painted everything we had already come into contact with during our labour. („Wir fanden Hilfsbereitschaft und Verständnis, und das half uns über manche Klippe hinweg, denn Rückenschmerzen und Blasen an den Händen gehören nun mal nicht zur angenehmen Seite einer Beschäftigung. Trotzdem gab es kein Kopfhängen. […] Unsere Motive fanden wir in der Fabrik, im Abraum und auf dem Montageplatz, und wir zeichneten und malten all das, womit wir während des Arbeitseinsatzes schon in Berührung gekommen waren.“; Mancke 1958, p. 13f.)