In her works, Degenhardt appears as a keen observer of persons and their characteristics, rendered with a sense of absurdity and the grotesque. Among her topics are enjoyment of life, hate, desire, admiration, bliss, disdain, greed, and suffering. Music and wine are frequent features of her work; she also portrayed the
Gonsbach valley, revolution (
Republic of Mainz),
vagabonds, dance, musicians, tramps, Ireland (
Farewell to Connaught), and, repeatedly, her husband Martin Degenhardt. She portrayed
John Lennon in an etching
Give Peace a Chance. Some sequences, such as
Fiddle & Pint, were first exhibited in Dublin. In the 1990s, she turned to women's topics such as
Vagabondage, cycles of wild and unique women, in books such as
Women in Music,
Vagabondage in Blue, and
Vagabondage en Rouge, with women making music in protest of political failures and social injustice.
Vagabondage Ad Mortem is a
danse macabre of 1995. Degenhardt illustrated many texts and books, such as
Liam O'Flaherty's
Der Stromer, and works by
Brecht,
Biermann, her brother-in-law Franz Josef Degenhardt, and other political authors, as well as record covers for
Irish folk music and singer-songwriters. == Awards ==