Käthe Kollwitz

Sharpening the Scythe (Beim Dengeln) from Kathe Kollwitz' Peasant War Series

1921

Käthe Kollwitz (1867 – 1945) was a German artist who studied both painting and printmaking. However she turned exclusively to print making in the early 1890s. Influenced by fellow German artist Max Klinger, she saw the potential of the print for social commentary. Prints could be reproduced inexpensively and in multiples, allowing her to reach more people.. Her most famous art cycles, including "A Weavers' Revolt" and "Seven Woodcuts on War", depict the effects of poverty, hunger and war on the working class. Despite the realism of her early works, She is now more widely associated with German Expressionism. Kollwitz was the first woman to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts. For the next 50 years she produced dramatic, emotion-filled etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs. Initially, her husband’s working-class patients were models. But eventually Kollwitz’s subject matter became a reflection of her own experience as a witness to both World Wars. She was devastated by the suffering and loss of human life, including the loss of a son in the first war and a grandson in the second. Although Kollwitz’s wrenching subjects and virtuoso technique soon made her work popular throughout Germany and the Western world, they also generated controversy. In 1933, the Nazi government forced her to resign her position as the first female professor appointed to the Prussian Academy; soon thereafter she was forbidden to exhibit her art.