Immendorff, who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, died after a heart attack at his home in the western city of Duesseldorf, his widow Oda Jaune-Immendorff said.

His best-known works were a series of paintings entitled “Cafe Deutschland” whose central theme was the post-World War II division of Germany and he won the prestigious Marco Prize of Mexico.

Immendorff was also the first German since World War II to be honored in a retrospective in the Polish National Museum in Warsaw.

He achieved notoriety in 2004 when he was given a suspended 11-month prison sentence after a cocaine-fueled orgy with nine prostitutes in a luxury Duesseldorf hotel suite.

Immendorff often accompanied Schroeder on foreign trips and before the scandal, he was considered a likely candidate to paint the official portrait of the Social Democrat chancellor to hang in the chancellery in Berlin when he left office in 2005.

Schroeder said Immendorff was “a friend, whom I will miss very much.”

“We have lost one of Germany’s greatest painters, who was highly respected internationally.

“He often accompanied me on trips abroad and through his exhibitions he contributed to enhancing the reputation of Germany as a country of culture,” Schroeder said.

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