Joseph Karl Huber, stagename JoKarl Huber (* 13 February 1902, † 1996) was a German artist.

Born in 1902 in the Wuerttembergian village of Laudenbach (now part of Weikersheim

Weikersheim

Weikersheim is a town in the Main-Tauber district, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the river Tauber, 9 km east of Bad Mergentheim, Weikersheim is the location of the famous castle Schloss Weikersheim....

, Huber first studied law, but gave that up to become an artist in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

. In 1938 he married fellow artist Hildegard Huber Sasse, and in 1942 the couple had a daughter, Ursula.

In the late 1930s the minister of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Weil der Stadt

Weil der Stadt

Weil der Stadt is a small town of about 19,000 inhabitants, located in the Stuttgart Region of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is about west of Stuttgart city center, and is often called "Gate to the Black Forest"...

, August Uhl, commissioned his childhood friend to create a stained-glass window

Stained glass

The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...

 commemorating the life of Christ

New Testament view on Jesus' life

The four canonical gospels of the New Testament are the primary sources of information for the doctrinal Christian narrative of the life of Jesus. There is not a single New Testament "view" on the life of Jesus, the four Canonical gospels tell different but connected stories...

. This was a politically brave request because in 1936 Huber's work had been labeled by the Nazis as "degenerate

Degenerate art

Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...

," although his work was not included in the infamous Entartete Kunst show in Munich in 1937. After working for two years on the project in Weil der Stadt, in 1940 Huber unveiled his new window, one panel of which shows the temptation

Temptation of Christ

The temptation of Christ is detailed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. According to these texts, after being baptized, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the Judean desert. During this time, the devil appeared to Jesus and tempted him...

 scene from the gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

, in which Satan

Satan

Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...

 offers all the realms of the world to Jesus, if he will only worship Satan. Satan bears the unmistakable features of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

. This window is considered Huber's masterwork.

In 1941 Huber served in the German army, was captured in 1944, and spent some time in a British prisoner-of-war camp. After the war, he returned to Munich, where he continued to work as an artist throughout the following decades, employing a variety of media, including glass

Glass

Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

, canvas

Canvas

Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

, bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

, and stone

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...

.