Die großen Menschheitsbilder eines Ketzers

Even the title of the book, an abbreviated quotation from HAP Grieshaber (1909-1981), signals his distance from the churches and his ambivalence in dealing with the Christian history of salvation. The artist, who originally came from a pietist family and was a committed leftist, turned his back on the church early on. This contrasts with a large number of groups of works and individual works with Christian or biblical themes, many of which found their way into church rooms or were created as commissioned works for a church context.

This apparent contradiction is at least partially clarified when the publication takes a closer look at the corresponding works of the artist, for example, when the contexts of their creation are investigated or when it is examined how Grieshaber deals with traditional iconography. Always out of a direct personal concern and often against a very concrete political background, the humanist Grieshaber interpreted traditional themes from the Christian history of salvation in unusual and sometimes still provocative ways.