Lithograph “In the Heath” (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. "I have an extraordinary appreciation for Günter Grass the draftsman, the graphic artist, the sculptor. What he has produced for half a century pleases me greatly, almost without exception." (Marcel Reich-Ranicki)