Markus Lüpertz is a prolific pioneer within German post-war art. He has been nick named the Painter Prince (Malerfürst) in German media, often to the annoyance of the artist himself. He studied at Düsseldorf Art Academy and moved to Berlin in 1961. At the time, abstract expressionism and pop art were in vogue on the German art scene. Artists wanted to distance themselves from the way the Nazi regime had appropriated and used art and did so by delving into abstraction. Lüpertz resisted this trend, and invented his own individual contribution to abstract art. This was not in the form of reduction or analysis, but by creating representations of meaningless objects. He was inspired by Nietzsche’s use of Dionysian poetry concepts from antiquity and called his style—the abstract that was also figurative— dithyrambs. The dismissal of conventions became the main theme of his artistic production. The Danish artist, Per Kirkeby (1938– 2018), had an apt description of his friend Lüpertz; that he just kept on painting without his works fitting in anywhere.

The story about Judith is a popular motif in art history, but Lüpertz represents the heroine in a completely untraditional style. Her surface is rough and uneven, which gives her a simplistic and unrefined expression. This outwards appearance becomes an expression of her inner strength. Judith stands out stylistically from other sculptures in park’s collection. She rejects all the preceding concepts of idealised beauty. She stands her ground and forces us to take a closer look. Maybe by separating Judith from the concept of an ideal beauty she can be seen as the strong heroine she is.