The painter and graphic artist Georg Philipp Wörlen was born in 1886 in the Bavarian town of Dillingen an der Donau. After graduating from the School of Applied Arts in Nuremberg, he worked as a restorer and teacher. During World War I, Wörlen spent 15 months as an English prisoner of war, where he met the artists Fritz Fuhrken and Franz Bronstert, with whom he founded the artists' group "Der Fels" in Passau around 1920. With the artist Carry Hauser, who also joined soon after, he had a long-lasting friendship, which finally broke down, however, because of their different attitudes towards National Socialism. After his Impressionist-oriented artistic beginnings, Wörlen turned to Expressionism, Cubism and New Objectivity in the course of his work, combining their elements to create his own visual language. The artist died in Passau in 1954. His estate, consisting of paintings, drawings, watercolours, gouaches and prints, is kept in the Museum of Modern Art in Passau.