Artist Quote: "While I drew, and wept along with the terrified children I was drawing, I really felt the burden I am bearing. I felt that I have no right to withdraw from the responsibility of being an advocate." Achievements: She helped found the Society for Women Artists and Friends of Art in 1926. Her anti-war posters, particularly her Central German Youth Day poster with the text "Never again War!," have particularly affected subsequent generations. A museum dedicated to Kollwitz’s work opened in Cologne, Germany, in 1985, and a second museum opened in Berlin one year later. | About the Artist: The loss of her son during World War I led to a lifelong exploration of the subject of mourning. Kollwitz established herself in an art world dominated by men by developing an aesthetic vision centered on women and the working class. In 1933, the Nazi government forced her to resign her position as the first female professor appointed to the Prussian Academy; soon thereafter in 1936, the Gestapo began a year-long campaign against Kollwitz, threatening to send her to a concentration camp if she did not renounce her anti-Nazi stance and cooperate with them by naming other anti-Nazi artists. The bombing of Kollwitz’s home and studio in 1943 destroyed much of her life’s work. About the Artwork: After 1890, she gave up painting in favor of etching and sculpture, and later turned to lithography and woodcuts. Her images were of bereaved mothers, ailing, fatherless children, anguished parents, and, more generally, suffering and death. Her depictions of universal human experiences, given depth and emotional power through her dense networks of lines and light and dark contrasts, were reflective of her time. |
Sources:
https://www.moma.org/artists/3201
https://nmwa.org/art/artists/kathe-kollwitz/
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/kollwitz-kathe/life-and-legacy/
https://www.moma.org/artists/3201
https://nmwa.org/art/artists/kathe-kollwitz/
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/kollwitz-kathe/life-and-legacy/