Heinz Trökes grew up in the Rhineland in Germany and studied art in Krefeld under Johannes Itten, who had been one of the first teaching masters at the Bauhaus in Weimar. He began working as a painter and earned his living as a textile designer. Trökes' first solo exhibition, at Galerie Nierendorf in Berlin in 1938, was shut down by the Nazi regime. The artist left Germany shortly after and traveled extensively in Europe and ultimately decided to emigrate to Indonesia, but the war caught up with him and he was drafted into the army.
After the war, Heinz Trökes worked as a teacher at a number of different art academies in Germany, including at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. He shared his time between Berlin and Ibiza, Spain, but also travelled extensively in Asia, Africa and South America, and his visual language reflects the manifold non-European influences. He participated in documenta I, II and III and had countless solo museum exhibitions in Germany, but also at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro in 1966, and was included in many group shows such as duitse kunst na 1945, Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum in 1954 and recently INVENTUR - ART IN GERMANY 1943-1955, Harvard Art Museums in Cambrigde, Massachusetts, in 2018. His works are in many important public collections in Germany and the US.