Robert Gernhardt (1937-2006) was a poet, illustrator, painter, writer, and theorist. His poems and picture poems, his stories, novels, and images, as well as his reflections on poetics and painting, and not least on contemporary political events, have shaped generations. He is praised as a legitimate successor to Wilhelm Busch, Kurt Tucholsky, Erich Kästner, and Bert Brecht. In the artful combination of compassionate sensitivity and sharp intellect, humor and wisdom, he established a unique tradition. No one before him managed to balance seriousness and comedy, high and low, in a comparable way.