As a young man, Bert Heller, a German painter, drawing artist, and monumentalist, was strongly influenced by Kathe Kollwitz’s graphic art and Bertolt Brecht’s poetry. The results of this influence can still be seen in his mature artworks. In his pieces, the compositional and coloristic techniques are linear and expressive.

In the German Democratic Republic, Heller was renowned first and foremost as a master of psychological portraits. Many cultural figures, including Bertolt Brecht, Anna Seghers, Arnold Zweig, and others, became his models.

The portrait of Gisela May, one of the best actresses of the Berliner Ensemble, has a distinctive free manner of painting along with demonstrative stylization of contours, virtuosity of proportions, and rare transitions of light and shadow, which strengthen the dramatic effects of the canvas.