His diploma work on Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, which is a sought-after collector's item due to its small edition, has been particularly singled out among colleagues.

[2] His intense preoccupation with literature, especially with the works of Bertolt Brecht, Franz Kafka and Thomas Mann, found fruitful expression in numerous graphic illustrations and already displayed Zander's typical style.

Meanwhile, Werner Tübke, the second grand master of the Leipzig School, was granted one of the largest art projects of the 20th century through the East German government, his monumental 14 m × 123 m Peasants' War Panorama, which Zander had also applied for.

Paintings before the Peaceful Revolution are characterised on the one hand by the fact that they display an immense number of glazes and complexity, but are often determined by one colour tone (e.g. by being bluish or reddish).

The paintings created at the time of the German reunification made subtle comments on contemporary events, which Zander did not engage in by taking direct sides as an active participant, but rather by seismographically recording them as an observer.

The etchings and paintings of the post-reunification period oscillate between melancholic seclusion and an enchanted, burlesque exoticism, and are populated by varying figures from history, contemporary life as well as mythology, such as Diana, Actaeon or Nessus.

Delivered with an inimitable sweep and a pronounced rigour of line, reminiscent of the Florentine early Renaissance and Art Nouveau, Heinz Zander's painterly oeuvre alone is estimated at well over a thousand panels.