Richard Grune was born in 1903 in Flensburg, Germany. Showing an early talent for art, he began training as a commercial artist at the Academy in Kiel at sixteen, completing his studies in 1922. That same year, he attended two of Johannes Itten's preliminary courses at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Though his Bauhaus application was ultimately rejected, Itten’s teachings left a lasting impact. Grune held his first public exhibition in Kiel in 1926.

In 1933, Grune moved to Berlin, possibly seeking safety as a gay man in a larger city. In 1934, the Nazi Gestapo arrested him for alleged violations of Paragraph 175, a law criminalizing homosexuality. After several months’ imprisonment, he was sentenced to a year in prison, but the Gestapo continued to detain him afterward, leading to nearly a decade in multiple concentration camps. Marked with the pink triangle, Grune faced severe treatment but received support from the German labor movement, with whom he had connections prior to his arrest. Their help allowed him to secretly create sketches and poems documenting his experiences in the camps.

In April 1945, Grune escaped Flossenbürg camp during the evacuation to Dachau as American forces approached. Back in Kiel, he created over 40 drawings reflecting his camp experiences. In 1946, these works were displayed in an exhibition in Kiel, though they were later destroyed by anonymous vandals. He subsequently published a series titled Passion of the 20th Century (Passion des XX. Jahrhunderts), which attracted little public attention.

In 1948, Grune faced another conviction under Paragraph 175. His continued persecution and lack of recognition as a Nazi victim deeply affected him. The same year Grune moved to Spain to escape further persecution, but financial hardship forced him to return to Germany in 1956. He found work as a construction laborer in Hamburg, where he also taught drawing to children of immigrant families.

In 1983, Grune moved to a nursing home in Kiel, where his sister cared for him until his death later that year. (ss)