Contemporary German artist Jorg Immendorff, best known for his Café Deutschland series of paintings, has died at the age of 61. Immendorff, who suffered from the neurodegenerative disease ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease)， died Monday after he went into cardiac arrest at home in Duesseldorf. Immendorff won fame in the late 1970s and through the 1980s for his Café Deutschland series. The vibrant, busy paintings depicted scenes from an imaginary nightclub on the border between the former East and West Germany and dealt with the partition of Germany and its post-Second World War problems. The northern Germany-born artist was a student of Joseph Beuys at the Duesseldorf Art Academy during the 1960s. During his years as a student activist, he rejected traditional paintings and was kicked out of the school for staging a series of political and neo-dadaist performance-art "happenings." During the 1970s, he and other students formed a neo-expressionist artists group called the Neue Wilde. Later, Immendorff spent about a dozen years teaching art to high school students. In 1996, the artist returned to his Duesseldorf alma mater as a professor. More recently, Immendorff's eye turned inward, with his paintings reflecting more personal issues and demonstrating more of a surrealist style. Later in his life, Immendorff became a friend and supporter of former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. He unveiled a portrait of Schroeder, destined for display at the German Federal Chancellery, earlier this year.