Witches' Lust and
the Fall of Man

This exhibition centered on the painting “Zwei Hexen” (Two witches) by the great painter and printmaker of the German Renaissance, Hans Baldung Grien, and flanked it with his drawings and woodcuts, including depictions of women — from the first mother, Eve, to contemporaneous witches — that are at times quite risqué. Baldung’s female nudes were not simply breaches of contemporary taboos, they also reflected in an unusually clear way on the erotic power of women. An unusually intellectual painter, Baldung also treated such themes as contemporary views of witches, and one painting even refers to a then very serious problem for love: syphilis.

CURATOR: Dr. Bodo Brinkmann, Städel Museum
SPONSORED BY: Hessische Kulturstiftung, Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung