Michael Triegel

Michael Triegel (born 13 December 1968 in Erfurt), is a German painter, illustrator and graphic artist based in Leipzig. He is associated with the New Leipzig School.^[1] He studied painting and graphic art under Arno Rink at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig from 1990 to 1995. His paintings are highly influenced by Renaissance art.^[2]

Triegel was baptised in 2014 and paints Christian subjects.^[3] In 2010 he painted an official portrait of Pope Benedict XVI. Instead of having the pope model the conventional way, Triegel was invited to the front row during a general audience.^[4] In 2015, Die Zeit called him "Germany's most famous religious artist".^[1] Between 2020 and 2022, he worked on reconstituting a partially destroyed altarpiece by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The resulting Cranach-Triegel Altarpiece has been the center of an ongoing controversy.^[5]