Grim Reaper

This is a detail from a 1924 painted sketch for a mural that was to have been installed in the 

Vienna City Crematorium.  The mural was never completed, at least not in this version, and it is thought that the sketch represents Kolig's take on the grim reaper as a well hung muscular man.  Imagine going to Aunt Hildegard's cremation and looking up at that.  While many of us 

would have been just fine with the concept, the Vienna city fathers were not.