Bernd Zimmer founded an artist group with like-minded friends as a young man. In 1977 in Berlin, Zimmer, Rainer Fetting, Helmut Middendorf, Salomé and others called themselves the "Neue Wilde" (New Savages). Their paintings were temperamental, colourful, expressive and representational - at a time when abstraction was the measure of all things and representational painting was frowned upon. The paragons of the New Wild were the artists of the Brücke.