Robert Gernhardt (19372006) Poet, draughtsman, painter, writer and theorist. His poems and picture poems, his stories, novels and pictures, his reflections on poetics and painting and not least on current (political) events have left their mark on generations. He is praised as a legitimate successor to Wilhelm Busch, Kurt Tucholsky, Erich Kästner and Bert Brecht. However, in his artful combination of compassionate sensitivity and sharp intellect, of humour and wisdom, he has established a tradition all of his own. No one before him managed the balancing act between seriousness and comedy, between "high" and "low" in a comparable way.