By his second year Förster was already establishing contacts with representatives of the officially forbidden " classical modern " art movement . By this time the division of Germany agreed between the Americans and the Soviets at Yalta at the beginning of 1945 had crystallised into a permanent frontier , but the border between the two Germanies was still relatively porous , especially between West Berlin and the surrounding territories governed as East Germany , and Förster took the opportunity to visit Bernhard Heiliger in the west . Walter Arnold , himself a consummate hands-on craftsman , helped a few of his students , whom he regarded as politically reliable , to deepen their understanding on the essential elements in figurative sculpture , by gaining experience with the works of the westerners Hermann Haller and Charles Despiau . In his third year , required to produce a " portrait from a ' photo " , Förster chose as his subject Bertolt Brecht , a long-standing icon of the German intellectual left but nevertheless at this stage ostracised by the authorities . In order to accomplish his course objective he was permitted , a few weeks before Brecht 's death in 1956 , to attend a rehearsal of Life of Galileo , being staged by the Berliner Ensemble ( theatre company )
Yalta
Yalta Conference
Wieland Förster