Franz Wagner, born in 1897 in Diessen am Ammersee, began drawing as a self-taught artist after World War I. It wasn't until the late 1920s that he completed his education at the Munich Academy. The work of this young painter thus falls into the 1930s and reflects the changing, increasingly constricted personal and creative freedom in its themes and style. The artistic output from these years was largely destroyed in a fire in 1945, with only a few exceptions. However, drawings and etchings survived the bombings in a coal cellar. After spending time in a mental institution during the troubled years between 1939 and 1946, the now 50-year-old painter faced a complete fresh start after World War II. This second creative period also begins with drawings, predominantly featuring portrait sketches, nudes, horses, and street scenes. From 1947/48 onwards, he resumed working in oil, although the style appeared transformed. For the painter, nature became a resting point, embodying life, peace, and freedom. In the natural order of growth, becoming, and passing away, he was able to find inner peace once again. It was only when the turmoil of the pre- and post-war years began to recede in the early 1960s that Wagner started to process his disturbing experiences: the apple serves as a symbol in two series of still lifes, and abstraction becomes a means of expressing the monstrous, essentially unrepresentable aspects of his experiences. He uses color both tactilely and symbolically to depict life, death, and threat. In 1968, sudden death marked the end of the work of the now 70-year-old painter.