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Immendorff studied stage art at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1963 to 1964. He was a student of the stage designer, painter and graphic artist Teo Otto as well as the object artist and draftsman Joseph Beuys. During this time he was already organizing public art activities in Düsseldorf under the name "LIDL", which he also staged in other cities and abroad. From 1968 to 1980 he was an art teacher at the Dumont-Lindemann secondary school in Düsseldorf. During this time, Immendorff visited the painter, draftsman and sculptor Ralf Winkler, better known by the artist name A. R. Penck, in East Berlin. Penck lived in Dresden at the time. This meeting resulted in collaborative work called the "Immendorff-Penck Collective". Immendorff drew groundbreaking inspiration from the works of the Italian painter Renato Guttuso, for example the polemics that he incorporated into his work. Particularly noteworthy in this regard is the Italian's work title "Café Gréco" (1976).
Based on this model, Immendorff's series "Café Deutschland" began in 1977. It deals with the division of Germany and its consequences for the art world and society. This work was also motivated by the encounter with the artist A. R. Penck. Immendorff visited him for the second time in the GDR in 1977. His way of working characterized Immendorff as a representative of the post-avant-gardists. In the second half of the 1970s he moved closer to the circle of the "Neue Wilde". In 1979 there was a third visit to A. R. Penck in Dresden. During this time, Immendorff worked in the Green/Bunten movement "Initiative Bunte Liste Düsseldorf" (ILB). Various guest teaching positions followed. In 1981 he accepted a visiting professorship at the Konsthögskolan in Stockholm. From 1982 to 1983 he held a guest teaching position at the Hamburg Art Academy, in the "Class F+F" in Zurich and at the Trondheim Art Academy. In the years 1984 and 1985 he was a guest teacher at the Werkschule Cologne and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 1984, Immendorff opened the Paloma Bar in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg.
The following year he completed his large sculpture of the actor Hans Albers, through which he became known to a wider public. In 1986 he provided the design for the stage design and costumes for the Richard Strauss opera "Elektra" at the Bremen City Theater. In 1987 and 1988 the artist stayed in Auckland, New Zealand. In 1987 he equipped André Heller's fantastic fairground "Luna Luna". Immendorff became a professor of painting at the Städel Institute in Frankfurt a.M. From 1996 he became a professor in Düsseldorf. A year later he was honored with the Marco Prize from the Monterrey Museum in Mexico, the richest art prize in the world. Jörg Immendorff created a painting in a narrative style. His topics came from culture, history, society and politics. He implemented them with black humor in his works of art. The subjects of his artworks are depicted in a realistic style. Immendorff's pictorial moods are mostly dark.
He often integrated well-known people from the public, politics or art into his picture spaces and thus gave them a specific intention. Many of his works are reflexive, as is signaled, for example, by the title "Meeting in honor of the dogmatic image - Beuys' speech is overrated" (1989). This refers to a work by Joseph Beuys entitled "The Silence of Marcel Duchamp is Overrated". Quotations from works by other artists in Immendorff's pictures, other references from art history or references in general are a characteristic feature of Immendorff's art work. His practical artistic work was accompanied by numerous publications. The following is a title excerpt from it: "Immendorff visits y. Germany times Germany - A German-German Treaty" (1979), "Interview with Joseph Beuys, sequel" (1979), "Brandenburg Gate - World Question" (1982), "FF- brings" (1983), "FF-brings ''La Paloma''" (1984), "A poem" (1986), "Monologue in the painter's headquarters" (1987) or "Towards the old madness" (1989). In 1997 he became a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Salzburg.
In the same year he accepted a visiting professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tianjin in the People's Republic of China. In 1999 his 25 meter high sculpture "Elbquelle" was officially inaugurated in Riesa. Jörg Immendorff had been married to the painter Oda Jaune since July 2000. They had a daughter together named Ida. After the police surprised Immendorff with nine prostitutes and cocaine in the luxury suite of a Düsseldorf hotel on August 16, 2003, the artist was confronted with public prosecutor's investigations for drug possession. He was also at risk of losing his Civil servant status and thus also the chair at the art academy. Regardless of this, the painter opened another exhibition in a gallery in Berlin-Mitte in mid-September 2003. At the beginning of August 2004, Immendorff was sentenced to eleven months in prison on probation by the Düsseldorf regional court for cocaine possession. He also had to pay 150,000 euros to a charitable organization.
Due to Immendorff's poor health - he suffered from the neurological disease ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) - the court decided not to imprison him and suspended his sentence on probation. On May 19, 2005, Immendorff received the "Golden Feder" media award from the Bauer publishing group. At the "Bambi" media award ceremony in December 2006, he was honored in the "Art" category.
