In Urach in the Swabian Alps, between May and August 1943 Willi Baumeister (1889–1955) produced sixty-four drawings and another one hundred and fifty or so variations on Gilgamesh, one of the oldest surviving epic poems in world literature, which includes the tale of a great flood and which can be dated to about 2,600 BC. For his illustrations on colored rag paper, Baumeister used charcoal, oil pastels, pencil, and frottage techniques. The drawings were acquired in 1980 by the Friends of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.Of all the series of illustrations that Baumeister produced during his period of “inner emigration,” Gilgamesch is the largest and probably the artist’s most personal. “My illustrations came close to the old reliefs on the gigantic walls, to cuneiforms and hieroglyphics, to symbolic signs, to rites and rituals that retain their mysteries like the distant and high god, whose name is never uttered but only paraphrased.” Exhibition schedule: Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, December 11, 2010–May 1, 2011