Lithograph “Beech Group” (2006), by Günter Grass, from the picture cycle “Moener Diary”

Günter Grass, born in Danzig in 1927, is considered a major figure in German literature. He also made a name for himself as a sculptor, painter, and graphic artist. With a touch of self-irony, he said of himself: "As a visual artist, I am a trained artist; as a writer, an untrained one." The trained painter painted as he truly was: lyrically poetic, uniquely just. In Grass's paintings, all three fundamental forms of poetry are fused into one: drama, epic, and lyric. "Grass's secret lies in the precarious and unique balance he was able to establish between his anarchic imagination and his superior artistic understanding." (Hans Magnus Enzensberger)