Hans-Jürgen Diehl is a German painter associated with New Realism and Critical Realism, known for his precise, photorealistic paintings depicting contemporary social and political subjects. His works often appear at first to be straightforward photographic scenes, but their carefully controlled perspectives, forms, and colours create constructed images that address themes of political and sexual manipulation. His work is rooted in the tradition of New Objectivity and the socially critical realism of 1920s Berlin and Dresden.

Born in Hanau in 1940, Diehl studied painting from 1959 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under Hermann Kaspar, at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, and at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Berlin. In 1964, he became a master student of Hann Trier. That same year, he was a founding member of Großgörschen 35, an independent exhibition group and self-run gallery established by Berlin artists in a former factory space.

Diehl became an important figure in the Berlin realist movement of the 1960s. From 1966, he exhibited as part of the “Section Großgörschen 35”, alongside artists including Ulrich Baehr, Werner Berges, Peter Sorge, Maina-Miriam Munsky, Wolfgang Petrick, and Lambert Maria Wintersberger. The group developed a critical artistic programme influenced by the Verist and New Objectivity movements of the 1920s. Diehl's work was subsequently shown widely in Germany and internationally, including at the Haus am Waldsee in Berlin, the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Düsseldorf, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.

In the 1970s, Diehl continued to develop his form of critical realism while taking on an increasingly prominent role in the German art world. He served on the board of the Deutscher Künstlerbund from 1973 to 1978 and, from 1977, held a professorship in painting at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He has continued to live and work between Berlin and New York.

Diehl's work has been exhibited in numerous museums and international exhibitions and is held in the collections of the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlinische Galerie, Kupferstichkabinett Dresden, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Osthaus Museum Hagen, Museum Ulm, and the Kunstsammlung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. His work was included in Der geteilte Himmel, an exhibition drawn from the Neue Nationalgalerie collection in Berlin in 2011–12, and Aufbruch Realismus. Die neue Wirklichkeit im Bild nach '68 in 2012. In 2026, his work was included in German Pop Art – Zwischen Provokation und Mainstream at the Ludwiggalerie Schloss Oberhausen.

Hans Jürgen Diehl