Hans Baldung-Grien, the son of a lawyer, was born Hans Baldung at Schwäbisch Gmünd in Swabia in 1484 and soon moved with his family to Strassburg (now Strasbourg).
He is the only male member of his family not to attend university, a background unusual for an artist at the time.
His uncle had become a doctor to the Emperor.
He is to spend the greater part of his life at Strasbourg and Freiburg im Breisgau.
The earliest pictures assigned to him by some are altarpieces with the monogram H. B. interlaced, and the date of 1496, in the monastery chapel of Lichtenthal near Baden-Baden.
Another early work is a portrait of the emperor Maximilian, drawn in 1501 on a leaf of a sketchbook now in the print-room at Karlsruhe.
Likely following initial training in Strasbourg, Baldung had joined Dürer's Nuremberg workshop in 1503 and had stayed until 1507.
Here, he has been given his nickname “Grien.”
This name foremost comes from his preference to the color green, because he usually wears green clothes.
He receives this nickname also to distinguish him from the two other Hans’ in the apprenticeship, Hans Schäufelein and Hans Suess von Kulmbach.
He will later included it in his monogram, and it has also been suggested that it came from "grienhals", a German word for witch.
Hans quickly has picked up Dürer's influence and style, and they have become good friends.
He seems to have been left in charge of the workshop during Dürer's second trip to Italy.
Near the end of his apprenticeship, Grien had overseen the production of stained glass, woodcuts and engravings, and therefore developed an affinity for them.
The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian and the Epiphany (now Berlin, 1507), were painted for the market-church of Halle in Saxony.
