Painter, graphic artist, and teacher Gerhard Kreische was born in Merseburg, Germany, on June 12, 1905. He studied at the Leipzig Academy for Graphic Arts under Walter Tiemann and Hans Alexander Müller, among others, and worked for the Reichsdruckerei printing house in the early 1930s, engraving inflation-era Deutschmarks. This helped him perfect his engraving technique and improved his understanding of printmaking as a utilitarian tool. At this time he also worked on his own painting. 

After the war, he became a freelance book designer and commerical artist, and joined the Association of German Commercial Artists, as well as the Neue Gruppe. He would become best known for his bookplates and stamp designs, working for a variety of German institutions and events, including the 1952 Winter Olympics, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (East Berlin), the 250th anniversary of the German Academy of Sciences, and a series of Nobel Prize winning scientists. In 1945 he was commissioned by the Berlin Main Committee of Victims of Fascism to design an artist postcard commemorating the first anniversary of the liberation of Dachau. 

Kreische exhibited with Josef Stuhldreher at Galerie Lowinsky, Berlin, Germany in 1948, and from 1950 he taught at the Berlin University of the Arts until his death in 1974.