Ingeborg Blumenthal was born in Bad Kreuznach in 1938. She lived in Munich, working initially as an art teacher at a secondary school. In 1990 she became a freelance painter. She painted the picture “Der Geist ist wie die Spuren der Vögel am Himmel” (Thoughts are like traces of birds in heaven) in the East Side Gallery.
The abstract painting “Der Geist ist wie Spuren der Vögel am Himmel” (Thoughts are like traces of birds in heaven) shows the silhouettes of human and angel figures. In the lower half of the picture they stand, fixed to the ground, while in the upper half, they appear to have freed themselves and are drifting up to the sky. The title is painted in German and English across the picture. The ascending angels stand for freedom of thought, perhaps relating to the new possibilities that opened after the fall of the Wall.
Blumenthal studied painting at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich and qualified as an art teacher. Her painting style was both abstract and figurative. She renovated her Wall painting in June 2000, a year before she died. In 2009 the artist Ursula Wünsch restored it in her place.