Ole West was born in 1953, the son of the painter Gerhard West in Wedel near Hamburg. He got the first art lessons as 12-year old boy with the Wedeler painter Albert-Ludwig Glaser. In 1975, he began to study at the College of Further Education in Hamburg and finished in 1979 with a diploma in design. After that he created diffenrent designs for house fronts, exhibition stands, large graphics, film, project and ships painting, amongst others for the Studio Hamburg of the NDR and the Ernst-Deutsch-Theater. Since 1984, he lives as a free painter and drawer on the island of Norderney (Germany), with a main focus on etchings, oil watercolor painting and mixed technics. His sworks are in public and private collections all around the world. Prints of his lightship pictures can be ordered online at the Tidenhubverlag.