View source for Käthe Kollwitz

{{Short description|German artist (1867–1945)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox artist
| name             = Käthe Kollwitz
| image            = Käthe Kollwitz by Hugo Erfurth, 1927.jpg
| image_upright    = 1
| caption          = Kollwitz in 1927
| birth_name       = Käthe Schmidt
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1867|7|8|df=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Königsberg]], [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]], [[North German Confederation]]
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1945|4|22|1867|7|8|df=y}}
| death_place      = [[Moritzburg, Saxony|Moritzburg]], Saxony, [[Nazi Germany]]
| nationality      = [[Germany|German]]
| awards           = ''[[Pour Le Mérite]]'' 1929<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.orden-pourlemerite.de/mitglieder/k%C3%A4the-kollwitz|language=de|title=Käthe Kollwitz |website=Orden Pour Le Mérite|access-date=15 July 2020}}</ref>
| field            = 
| training         = 
| movement         = [[Expressionism]]
| works            = 
| patrons          = 
| spouse           = [[Karl Kollwitz]]
| children         = 2 (including [[Hans Kollwitz|Hans]])
| relatives        = [[Conrad Schmidt (economist)|Conrad Schmidt]] (brother) <br/>[[Johanna Hofer]] (niece)<br/> [[Maria Matray]] (niece)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://knerger.de/html/hoferjohschauspieler_45.html|title=Johanna Hofer, née Johanna Stern|work=knerger.de|accessdate=1 February 2022}}</ref>
| resting_place    = [[Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde]]
}}

'''Käthe Kollwitz''' ({{IPA|de|kɛːtə kɔlvɪt͡s}} born '''Schmidt'''; 8 July 1867{{spnd}}22 April 1945)<ref>{{Britannica|321437}}</ref> was a German artist who worked with [[painting]], [[printmaking]] (including [[etching]], [[lithography]] and [[woodcuts]]) and [[sculpture]]. Her most famous art cycles, including ''The Weavers'' and ''The Peasant War'', depict the effects of [[poverty]], hunger and [[war]] on the working class.<ref>Bittner, Herbert, ''Kaethe Kollwitz; Drawings'', p. 1. Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.</ref><ref>Fritsch, Martin (ed.), ''Homage to Käthe Kollwitz''. Leipzig: E. A. Seeman, 2005.</ref> Despite the [[Naturalism (art)|realism]] of her early works, her art is now more closely associated with [[Expressionism]].<ref>"The aim of realism to capture the particular and accidental with minute exactness was abandoned for a more abstract and universal conception and a more summary execution". Zigrosser, Carl: ''Prints and Drawings of Käthe Kollwitz'', page XIII. Dover, 1969.</ref> Kollwitz was the first woman not only to be elected to the [[Prussia]]n [[Akademie der Künste|Academy of Arts]] but also to receive honorary professor status.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schaefer|first=Jean Owens|date=1994|title=Kollwitz in America: A Study of Reception, 1900–1960|journal=Woman's Art Journal |issue=1|volume=15|pages=29–34|doi=10.2307/1358492|jstor=1358492}}</ref>

==Life and work==
===Youth===
Kollwitz was born in [[Königsberg]], Prussia, as the fifth child in her family. Her father, Karl Schmidt, was a [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democrat]] who became a mason and house builder. Her mother, Katherina Schmidt, was the daughter of [[Julius Rupp]],<ref>{{NDB|12|470|471|Kollwitz, Käthe|Wirth, Irmgard|118564943}}</ref> a Lutheran pastor who was expelled from the official [[Prussian Union of Churches|Evangelical State Church]] and founded an independent congregation.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rasche|first=Anna C.|title=Reason and Religion by Julius Rupp |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=32geAQAAMAAJ&pg=PR12|access-date=7 November 2014 |year=1881|publisher=S. Tinsley & Company|chapter=Biographical Sketch of Dr. Julius Rupp |page=xx}}</ref> Her education and her art were greatly influenced by her grandfather's lessons in religion and socialism. Her older brother [[Conrad Schmidt (economist)|Conrad]] became a prominent economist of the SPD.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kollwitz |first=Käthe |title=Die Tagebücher |date=1989 |publisher=Siedler |others=Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz |isbn=3-88680-251-5 |location=Berlin |oclc=21270954}}</ref>

Recognizing her talent, Kollwitz's father arranged for her to begin lessons in drawing and copying plaster casts on 14 August 1879 when she was twelve.<ref>Bittner, p. 2.</ref> In 1885-6 she began her formal study of art under the direction of [[Karl Stauffer-Bern]], a friend of the artist [[Max Klinger]], at the School for Women Artists in Berlin.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Rahim |first=Habibeh |title=Capturing the Essence of their Vision and Form: A Treasury of Art Works by Women from the Hofstra Museum Collection |publisher=Hofstra University |year=1994 |location=Hempstead, NY}}</ref> At sixteen she began working with subjects associated with the [[Realism (arts)|Realism]] movement, making drawings of working people, sailors and peasants she saw in her father's offices.  The etchings of Klinger, their technique and social concerns, were an inspiration to Kollwitz.<ref>Kurth, Willy: ''Käthe Kollwitz, Geleitwort zum Katalog der Ausstellung in der Deutschen Akademie der Künste,'' 1951.</ref>

In 1888/89, she studied painting with Ludwig Herterich in [[Munich]],<ref name=":1" /> where she realized her strength was not as a painter, but a draughtsman. When she was seventeen, her brother Konrad introduced her to Karl Kollwitz, a medical student. Thereafter, Kathe became engaged to Karl, while she was studying art in Munich.<ref>Bittner, p. 3.</ref> In 1890, she returned to Königsberg, rented her first studio, and continued to depict the harsh labors of the working class. These subjects were an inspiration in her work for years.<ref name="Bittner, p. 4">Bittner, p. 4.</ref>

In 1891, Kollwitz married Karl, who by this time was a doctor tending to the poor in Berlin. The couple moved into the large apartment that would be Kollwitz's home until it was destroyed in [[World War II]].<ref name="Bittner, p. 4"/> The proximity of her husband's practice proved invaluable:

<blockquote>"The motifs I was able to select from this milieu (the workers' lives) offered me, in a simple and forthright way, what I discovered to be beautiful.... People from the bourgeois sphere were altogether without appeal or interest. All middle-class life seemed pedantic to me. On the other hand, I felt the proletariat had guts. It was not until much later...when I got to know the women who would come to my husband for help, and incidentally also to me, that I was powerfully moved by the fate of the proletariat and everything connected with its way of life.... But what I would like to emphasize once more is that compassion and commiseration were at first of very little importance in attracting me to the representation of [[proletariat|proletarian]] life; what mattered was simply that I found it beautiful."<ref>Fecht, Tom: ''Käthe Kollwitz'': Works in Color, p. 6. Random House, Inc., 1988.</ref></blockquote>
[[File:Käthe Kollwitz - Self-Portrait at the Table (1893).jpg|thumb|''Self-Portrait at the Table'' (1893). Print. This exemplary housed at the [[Milwaukee Art Museum]].]]
[[File:Kollwitz.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Woman with Dead Child]]'', 1903 etching]]

===Personal health===
It is believed Kollwitz suffered [[anxiety]] during her childhood due to the death of her siblings, including the death of her younger brother, Benjamin.<ref>Bittner, pp. 1–2.</ref> More recent research suggests that Kollwitz may have suffered from a childhood neurological disorder [[Alice in Wonderland syndrome|dysmetropsia]] (sometimes called ''Alice in Wonderland syndrome'', due to its  sensory hallucinations and [[Migraine|migraines]]).<ref>{{cite journal |last=Drysdale |first=Graeme R. |url=http://jmb.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/rsmjmb;17/2/106?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=50&resourcetype=HWCIT |title=Kaethe Kollwitz (1867–1945): the artist who may have suffered from Alice in Wonderland Syndrome |journal=Journal of Medical Biography |volume=17 |pages=106–10 |date=May 2009 |doi=10.1258/jmb.2008.008042 |pmid=19401515 |issue=2 |s2cid=39662350 |access-date=3 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090629211947/http://jmb.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/rsmjmb;17/2/106?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=50&resourcetype=HWCIT |archive-date=29 June 2009 |url-status=dead  }}</ref>

===''The Weavers''===
[[File:The March of the Weavers in Berlin - Käthe Kollwitz - 1897.jpg|thumb|''The March of the Weavers in Berlin'']]

Between the births of her sons – Hans in 1892 and Peter in 1896 – Kollwitz saw a performance of [[Gerhart Hauptmann]]'s ''[[The Weavers (play)|The Weavers]]'', which dramatized the oppression of the [[Silesia]]n weavers in [[Bielawa|Langenbielau]] and their failed revolt in 1844.<ref name="Bittner, p. 4"/><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last1=Marchesano|first1=Louis|title=Käthe Kollwitz: prints, process, politics|last2=Natascha|first2=Kirchner|publisher=Getty Research Institute|year=2020|isbn=978-1-60606-615-7|editor-last=Marchesano|editor-first=Louis|location=Los Angeles|pages=18, 30|oclc=1099544287}}</ref> Kollwitz was inspired by the performance and ceased work on a series of etchings she had intended to illustrate [[Émile Zola]]'s ''[[Germinal (novel)|Germinal]].'' She produced a cycle of six works on the weavers theme, three lithographs (''Poverty'', ''Death'', and ''Conspiracy'') and three etchings with [[aquatint]] and [[sandpaper]] (''March of the Weavers'', ''Riot'', and ''The End''). Not a literal illustration of the drama, nor an idealization of workers, the prints expressed the workers' misery, hope, courage, and eventually, doom.<ref name=":0" />

The cycle was exhibited publicly in 1898 to wide acclaim. But when [[Adolph Menzel]] nominated her work for the gold medal of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition of 1898 in Berlin, [[Kaiser Wilhelm II]] withheld his approval, saying "I beg you gentlemen, a medal for a woman, that would really be going too far . . . orders and medals of honour belong on the breasts of worthy men."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Knafo|first=Danielle|date=1998|title=The Dead Mother in Käthe Kollwitz|url=http://danielleknafo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Ch1_Kollwitz.pdf|journal=Art Criticism|volume=13|pages=24–36|via=Danielleknafo.com}}</ref> Nevertheless, ''The Weavers'' became Kollwitz' most widely acclaimed work.<ref>Bittner, pp. 4–5.</ref>

===''Peasant War''===
Kollwitz's second major cycle of works was the ''Peasant War.'' The production of this series lasted from 1902 to 1908 due to many preliminary drawings and discarded ideas in lithography. It was inspired by the [[German Peasants' War]] of 1524–1525, when oppressed peasants in southern Germany took arms against the nobility and the Church. As with ''The Weavers'', this body of work may have been influenced by a Hauptmann play,  ''Florian Geyer'' (1895). However, the initial source of Kollwitz's interest dated to her youth when she and her brother Konrad playfully imagined themselves as barricade fighters in a revolution.<ref name="Bittner, p. 6">Bittner, p. 6.</ref> Not only did Kollwitz have a childhood connection, but an artistic connection as well. She was an advocate for those without a voice and liked to portray the working class in a way no one else saw.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 25086460|title = Four Drawings, and an Essay on Kollwitz|journal = The Massachusetts Review|volume = 1|issue = 1|pages = 96–104|last1 = Baskin|first1 = Leonard|year = 1959}}</ref> The artist identified with the character of Black Anna, a woman cited as a protagonist in the uprising.<ref name="Bittner, p. 6"/> When completed, the ''Peasant War'' consisted of seven etchings: ''Plowing'', ''Raped'', ''Sharpening the Scythe'', ''Arming in the Vault'', ''Charge'', ''The Prisoners'', and ''After the Battle''. ''After the Battle'' is described as eerily premonitory as it features a mother searching for her son's body in the night. In all, the works were technically more impressive than those of ''The Weavers'', owing to their greater size and dramatic command of light and shadow. They are Kollwitz's highest achievements as an etcher.<ref name="Bittner, p. 6"/>

Kollwitz visited Paris twice while working on ''Peasant War'' and took classes at the [[Académie Julian]] in 1904 to learn to sculpt.<ref>Bittner, pp. 6–7. During this time she also visited [[Auguste Rodin]] twice.</ref> The etching ''Outbreak'' was awarded the [[Villa Romana Prize]]. This prize provided a year's stay in 1907 in a studio in [[Florence]]. Although Kollwitz completed no work there, she later recalled the impact of early [[Renaissance]] art she experienced during her time in Florence.<ref>''"But there, for the first time, I began to understand Florentine art."''  Kollwitz, Kaethe: ''The Diaries and Letters of Kaethe Kollwitz'', p. 45. Henry Regnery Company, 1955.</ref> 
[[File:Het treurende ouderpaar - Käthe Kolwitz.JPG|thumb|''The Grieving Parents'', a memorial to Kollwitz's son Peter, in [[Vladslo German war cemetery]], Belgium]]

===Modernism and World War I===
After her return to Germany, Kollwitz continued to exhibit her work but was impressed by younger compatriots.  [[Expressionism|Expressionists]] and (after the First World War) [[Bauhaus]] artists inspired Kollwitz to simplify her means of expression.<ref>"Nevertheless I am no longer satisfied. There are too many good things that seem fresher than mine... I should like to do the new etchings so that all the essentials are strongly stressed and the inessentials almost omitted." Kollwitz, p. 52.</ref> Subsequent works such as ''Runover'', 1910, and ''Self-Portrait'', 1912, show this new direction. She also continued to work on sculpture.
<gallery>
File:Kollwitz peter oct 1914.png|{{center|{{interlanguage link|Peter Kollwitz|de}} as German soldier, 2 October 1914}}
File:Kollwitz peter grabkreuz ypern.png|{{center|Grave cross of Peter Kollwitz at the [[In Flanders Fields Museum]]}}
</gallery>

Kollwitz lost her younger son, Peter, on the battlefield in [[World War I]] in October 1914.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=McCausland |first=Elizabeth |date=February 1937 |title=Käthe Kollwitz |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/771494 |journal=Parnassus |volume=9| issue =  2 |pages=20–25 |doi=10.2307/771494 |jstor=771494 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The loss of her child began a stage of prolonged depression in her life. By the end of 1914 she had made drawings for a monument to Peter and his fallen comrades. She destroyed the monument in 1919 and began again in 1925.<ref>Bittner, p. 9.</ref> The memorial, titled ''The Grieving Parents'', was finally completed and placed in the [[Belgium|Belgian]] cemetery of Roggevelde in 1932.<ref>"I stood before the woman, looked at her—my own face—and wept and stroked her cheeks." Kollwitz, p. 122.</ref> Later, when Peter's grave was moved to the nearby [[Vladslo German war cemetery]], the statues were also moved.<blockquote>"We [women] are endowed with the strength to make sacrifices which are more painful than giving our own blood. Consequently, we are able to see our own [men] fight and die when it is for the sake of freedom."<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite journal | doi=10.2307/2905713 | jstor=2905713| title=Kathe Kollwitz on Sacrifice, Mourning, and Reparation: An Essay in Psychoaesthetics| journal=MLN| volume=101| issue=5| pages=1110–1134| year=1986| last1=Moorjani| first1=Angela}}</ref></blockquote>In 1917, on her 50th birthday, the galleries of [[Paul Cassirer]] provided a retrospective exhibition of one hundred and fifty drawings by Kollwitz.<ref>"The elements of her nature and her art can often be felt more immediately in the drawings than in the prints, even much that in the latter has scarcely found a fulfillment." Kurth, Willy: ''Kunstchronik'', N.F., Vol. XXXVII, 1917.</ref>

Kollwitz was a committed [[Socialism|socialist]] and [[Pacifism|pacifist]], who was eventually attracted to [[communism]]. She expressed her political and social sympathies in her woodcut print, "''[https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernity-ap/a/kthe-kollwitz-in-memoriam-karl-liebknecht memorial sheet for] [[Karl Liebknecht]]''" and in her involvement with the ''[[Arbeitsrat für Kunst]]'', a part of the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democratic]] government in the first few weeks after the war. As the war wound down and a nationalistic appeal was made for old men and children to join the fighting, Kollwitz implored in a published statement:

<blockquote>There has been enough of dying! Let not another man fall!<ref>Kollwitz, p. 89.</ref></blockquote>
While working on the sheet for Karl Liebknecht, she found etching insufficient for expressing monumental ideas. After viewing woodcuts by [[Ernst Barlach]] at the [[Secession]] exhibitions, she completed the Liebknecht sheet in the new medium and made about 30 woodcuts by 1926.<ref name="Bittner, p. 10">Bittner, p. 10.</ref>

In 1919 Kollwitz was appointed to the position of professor at the [[Prussia]]n [[Akademie der Künste|Academy of Arts]], the first woman to hold that position.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Käthe Kollwitz: About the Artist |url=https://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/kathe-kollwitz?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8pmq9vvi5wIVmZ0zCH0bQQUuEAAYASAAEgIqvvD_BwE |access-date=21 February 2020 |website=National Museum of Women in the Arts}}</ref> Membership entailed a regular income, a large studio, and a full professorship.<ref name="Bittner, p. 10"/> In 1933, the Nazi government forced her to resign from this position.<ref name=":3" />

In 1928 she was also named director of the Master Class for Graphic Arts at the Prussian Academy.<ref name=":2" /> However, this title would soon be stripped after the [[Nazism|Nazi regime]] rose to power.

===''War'' (''Krieg'')===
In the years after [[World War I]], her reaction to the war found a continuous outlet. In 1922–23 she produced the cycle ''War'' in woodcut form, including the works ''The Sacrifice'', ''The Volunteers'', ''The Parents'', ''The Widow I'', ''The Widow II'', ''The Mothers'', and ''The People''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300219999/kathe-kollwitz-and-women-war|title=Käthe Kollwitz and the Women of War {{!}} Yale University Press|website=yalebooks.com|access-date=11 March 2017}}</ref> Much of this art was inspired by pro-war propaganda which she and [[Otto Dix]] riffed on to create anti-war propaganda.<ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.2307/3046258 | jstor=3046258| title='Heroes' and 'Whores': The Politics of Gender in Weimar Antiwar Imagery| journal=The Art Bulletin| volume=79| issue=3| pages=366–384| year=1997| last1=Apel| first1=Dora| s2cid=27242388}}</ref> Kollwitz wanted to show the horrors of living through a war to combat the pro-war sentiment that had begun to grow in Germany again.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sharp|first=Ingrid|date=2011|title=Käthe Kollwitz's Witness to War: Gender, Authority, and Reception.|journal=Women in German Yearbook|volume=41|pages=193–221|jstor=10.5250/womgeryearbook.27.2011.0087|doi=10.5250/womgeryearbook.27.2011.0087|s2cid=142560257}}</ref> In 1924 she finished her three most famous posters: ''Germany's Children Starving'', ''Bread'', and ''Never Again War ("Nie Wieder Krieg")''.<ref>Bittner, p. 11.</ref>

===''Death'' Cycle ===
Working now in a smaller studio, in the mid-1930s she completed her last major cycle of lithographs, ''Death'', which consisted of eight stones: ''Woman Welcoming Death'', ''Death with Girl in Lap'', ''Death Reaches for a Group of Children'', ''Death Struggles with a Woman'', ''Death on the Highway'', ''Death as a Friend'', ''Death in the Water'', and ''The Call of Death.''

=== ''Seed Corn Must Not Be Ground'' (1942) ===
When [[Richard Dehmel]] called for more soldiers to fight in [[World War I]] in 1918, Kollwitz wrote an impassioned letter to the newspaper he published his call in, stating that there should be no more war, and that "seed corn must not be ground" in reference to young soldiers who were dying in the war.<ref>Ingrid Sharp, “Käthe Kollwitz’s Witness to War: Gender, Authority, and Reception,” ''Women in German Yearbook'' 27, (2011): 95.</ref> In 1942, she made a piece by the same name, this time in reaction to [[World War II]]. The work shows a mother, arms cast over three young children to protect them. [[File:Berlin, Neue Wache, interior view, 2005.jpg|thumb|left|The interior of [[Neue Wache]] in Berlin, with Käthe Kollwitz's sculpture ''[[Mother with her Dead Son]]'' – centerpiece of what is today a memorial to "victims of war and dictatorship".]]

===Later life and World War II===
In 1933, after the establishment of the [[Nazi Germany|National-Socialist regime]], the [[Nazi Party]] authorities forced her to resign her place on the faculty of the ''[[Akademie der Künste]]'' following her support of the ''[[Dringender Appell]]''.<ref name="körner">Dorothea Körner, [http://www.luise-berlin.de/bms/bmstxt00/0009gesb.htm "Man schweigt in sich hinein – Käthe Kollwitz und die Preußische Akademie der Künste 1933–1945"] ''Berlinische Monatsschrift'' (2000) Issue 9, pp. 157–166. Retrieved 8 July 2010 {{in lang|de}}</ref> Her work was removed from museums. Although she was banned from exhibiting, one of her "mother and child" pieces was used by the Nazis for propaganda.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 1360622|title = The Point is to Change It|journal = Oxford Art Journal|volume = 21|issue = 2|pages = 185–193|last1 = Kelly|first1 = Jane|year = 1998|doi = 10.1093/oxartj/21.2.185}}</ref>
<blockquote>"They give themselves with jubilation; they give themselves like a bright, pure flame ascending straight to heaven."<ref name="ReferenceA"/></blockquote>

In July 1936, she and her husband were visited by the [[Gestapo]], who threatened her with arrest and deportation to a [[Nazi concentration camp]]; they resolved to commit suicide if such a prospect became inevitable.<ref>Bittner, p. 13.</ref> However, Kollwitz was by now a figure of international note, and no further action was taken.

On her 70th birthday, she "received over 150 telegrams from leading personalities of the art world," as well as offers to house her in the [[United States]], which she declined for fear of provoking reprisals against her family.<ref name="Bittner, p. 15">Bittner, p. 15.</ref>

She outlived her husband (who died from an illness in 1940) and her grandson Peter, who died in action in [[World War II]] two years later. 

In 1942, The [[Contemporary Art Society (Australia)|Contemporary Art Society of Australia]] mounted its "Anti-Fascist Exhibition" displaying two lithographs and etchings by Kollwitz and including in the catalogue a print of her 1919 lithograph "The Mothers".<ref>{{Citation |last=Kollwitz |first=Käthe |title=Mothers |date=1919 |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/398148 |access-date=2025-04-10}}</ref><ref name=":4" /> The catalogue also paid tribute to her in a biography which stated, "Nazism paid her the compliment of banning her work and including it in its notorious exhibition of '[[Degenerate Art exhibition|Degenerate Art]]', which in fact represented the greatest glories of German democratic art."<ref name=":4">Exhibition catalogue. The Contemporary Art Society of Australia. Anti-fascist exhibition. 1942 at item 80, MS9 Papers of Heide Gallery, in the National Gallery of Australia Research Library and Archives.</ref>  

[[File:Kollwitz-tomb.JPG|thumb|upright|Kollwitz-Schmidt burial plot in Berlin]]

She was evacuated from Berlin in 1943. Later that year, her house was bombed and many drawings, prints, and documents were lost. She moved first to [[Nordhausen, Thuringia|Nordhausen]], then to [[Moritzburg, Saxony|Moritzburg]], a town near [[Dresden]], where she lived her final months as a guest of [[Prince Ernst Heinrich of Saxony]].<ref name="Bittner, p. 15"/> Kollwitz died just 16 days before the end of the war. She was cremated and honoured with an [[Ehrengrab]] in Berlin's [[Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde|Friedrichsfelde Cemetery]].

==Legacy==
[[File:Kollwitzstatue.jpg|thumb|upright|Statue by [[Gustav Seitz]] ]]

Kollwitz made a total of 275 prints, in etching, woodcut and lithography. Virtually the only portraits she made during her life were images of herself, of which there are at least fifty. These self-portraits constitute a lifelong honest self-appraisal; "they are psychological milestones".<ref>Zigrosser, p.  xxii, 1969.</ref>

<blockquote>Her silent lines penetrate the marrow like a cry of pain; such a cry was never heard among the Greeks and Romans.<ref>Gerhart Hauptmann, quoted by Zigrosser, p. xiii, 1969.</ref></blockquote>

[[Dore Hoyer]] and what had been [[Mary Wigman]]'s dance school created ''Dances for Käthe Kollwitz''. The dance was performed in [[Dresden]] in 1946.<ref name=partsch>{{cite book|last=Partsch-Bergsohn|first=Isa|title=Modern dance in Germany and the United States : crosscurrents and influences|date=1994|publisher=Harwood Acad. Publ.|location=Chur|isbn=978-3-7186-5557-1|page=122|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=3718655578}}</ref>
Käthe Kollwitz is a subject within [[William T. Vollmann]]'s ''[[Europe Central]]'', a 2005 [[National Book Award]] winner for fiction. In the book, Vollmann describes the lives of those touched by the fighting and events surrounding World War II in Germany and the [[Soviet Union]]. Her chapter is entitled "Woman with Dead Child", after her sculpture of the same name.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}}

An enlarged version of a similar Kollwitz sculpture, ''[[Mother with her Dead Son]]'', was placed in 1993 at the center of [[Neue Wache]] in Berlin, which serves as a monument to "the Victims of War and Tyranny".<ref>{{cite news |last=Kinzer |first=Stephen |date=15 November 1993 |title=Berlin Journal; The War Memorial: To Embrace the Guilty, Too? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/15/world/berlin-journal-the-war-memorial-to-embrace-the-guilty-too.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=10 December 2018}}</ref>

[[:de:Liste_von_Käthe-Kollwitz-Schulen|More than 40 German schools]] are named after Kollwitz.{{citation needed|date=November 2013}} A statue of Kollwitz by [[Gustav Seitz]] was installed in Kollwitzplatz, Berlin in 1960 where it remains to this day.<ref>{{Coord|52.5363839|13.4173625|region:de_type:landmark}}</ref>

Four museums, in [[Käthe Kollwitz Museum (Berlin)|Berlin]],<ref>[http://www.kaethe-kollwitz.de/en/ Käthe Kollwitz Museum Berlin] Official website. Retrieved 26 November 2017</ref> [[Käthe Kollwitz Museum (Cologne)|Cologne]]<ref>[http://www.kollwitz.de/en/default.aspx Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln] Official website. Retrieved 30 January 2011 {{in lang|de}}</ref> and [[Käthe Kollwitz House (Moritzburg)|Moritzburg]], and the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in [[Koekelare]] are dedicated solely to her work. The [[Käthe Kollwitz Prize]], established in 1960, is named after her.<ref name="Akademie der Künste, Berlin">{{cite web | title=Käthe Kollwitz Prize | website=Akademie der Künste, Berlin | url=https://www.adk.de/en/academy/prizes-foundations/kaethe-kollwitz-prize.htm | access-date=2 April 2022}}</ref>

In 1986, a [[DEFA (film studio)|DEFA]] film ''Käthe Kollwitz'', about the artist was made with [[Jutta Wachowiak]] as Kollwitz.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Schall |first1=Johanna |title=Theaterliebe: Interview mit Matthias Freihof zu 'Coming Out' |url=http://johannaschall.blogspot.com/2011/03/interview-mit-matthias-freihof-zu.html |website=Theaterliebe |access-date=30 January 2019 |date=10 March 2011}}</ref>

In 2012, an exhibition of her work was curated for the [[Weisman Art Museum]] at the [[University of Minnesota]] by the art historian Corinna Kirsch.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Abbe |first1=Mary |title=Commanding Heart |url=https://www.startribune.com/commanding-heart/150971605/ |access-date=16 July 2024 |publisher=Star Tribune}}</ref>

Kollwitz is one of the 14 main characters of the series ''[[14 - Diaries of the Great War]]'' in 2014. She is played by actress [[Christina Große]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Bopp |first=Lena |date=27 May 2014 |title=Das Leid, der Schmerz, die Angst sind stets gleich |url=https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/fernsehserie-zum-1-weltkrieg-das-leid-der-schmerz-die-angst-sind-stets-gleich-12959456.html |work=[[Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]] |language=de |access-date=10 December 2018}}</ref>

In 2014, the Dallas Museum of Art exhibited, ''Käthe Kollwitz: A Social Activist in the Era of World War I''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Käthe Kollwitz: A Social Activist in the Era of World War I |url=https://www.dma.org/art/exhibitions/kathe-kollwitz-social-activist-era-world-war-i |access-date=2025-10-09 |website=www.dma.org}}</ref>

In 2017, [[Google Doodle]] marked Kollwitz's 150th birthday.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://doodles.google/doodle/kathe-kollwitzs-150th-birthday/|title=Käthe Kollwitz's 150th Birthday|website=Google Doodle|access-date=9 July 2017}}</ref>

An exhibition, ''Portrait of the Artist: Käthe Kollwitz'' was held at the [[Ikon Gallery]] in Birmingham, England, from 13 September{{snd}}26 November 2017, and is intended to be shown subsequently in Salisbury, Swansea, Hull and London.<ref name="Ikon">{{cite web|title=Ikon Portrait of the Artist: Käthe Kollwitz|work=Ikon|date=18 November 2016|url=https://ikon-gallery.org/event/kathe-kollwitz/|publisher=[[Ikon Gallery]]|access-date=12 November 2017|archive-date=13 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171113114157/https://ikon-gallery.org/event/kathe-kollwitz/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

A [[Retrospective|retrospective exhibition]] of her work was held at the [[Museum of Modern Art]] in New York in 2024.<ref>{{cite book |last=Figura |first=Starr |title=Käthe Kollwitz{{snd}}A Retrospective |publisher=Museum of Modern Art, New York |year=2024 |isbn=9781633451612 |lccn=2023951307}}</ref>

==Gallery==
<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">
File:Käthe Kollwitz, Betende Frau (Femme en prière).jpg|''Praying woman'', 1892. [[Musée d'art moderne et contemporain of Strasbourg]]
File:Käthe Kollwitz, Not (Misère).jpg|''Misery'', 1897. [[Musée d'art moderne et contemporain of Strasbourg]]
File:Käthe Kollwitz Bust of a Working Woman in a Blue Shawl (Brustbild einer Arbeiterfrau mit blauem Tuch).jpg|''Bust of a Working Woman in a Blue Shawl'', 1903. [[Brooklyn Museum]]
File:Käthe Kollwitz The Young Couple (Junges Paar).jpg|''The Young Couple'', 1904. [[Brooklyn Museum]]
File:Kollwitz Whetting the scythe.jpg|''Whetting the Scythe'', 1908, National Museum in Wrocław
File:Käthe Kollwitz Working Woman (with Earring) (Arbeiterfrau (mit dem Ohrring)).jpg|''Working Woman (with Earring)'', 1910. [[Brooklyn Museum]]
File:"Die Mütter" - Käthe Kollwitz ; Felsing (printer). LCCN2009630850.jpg|alt=woodcut of mothers holding each other|''Die Mütter'' [The Mothers], 1922, [[woodcut]], [[Library of Congress]]
File:A viúva I, de Käethe Köllwitz (1922-23), Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros (MA-0557).tif|The Widow I (1922–23), woodcut from the [[Mário de Andrade|Mario de Andrade]] Collection, at the Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros
</gallery>
{{Clear all}}

==Literature==
* Hannelore Fischer for the Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne (Ed.): ''Käthe Kollwitz. A Survey of her Works. 1888–1942'', Hirmer publishers, Munich 2022, {{ISBN|978-3-7774-3079-9}}.

==See also==
* [[List of German women artists]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline|Käthe Kollwitz}}
* {{Wikiquote-inline}}
* [http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/kathe-kollwitz Entry for Kathe Kollwitz] in [[Wikipaintings]]
* [http://www.getty.edu/vow/ULANFullDisplay?find=K%C3%A4the+Kollwitz&role=&nation=&prev_page=1&subjectid=500016751 Entry for Käthe Kollwitz] on the [[Union List of Artist Names]]
*[https://www.moma.org/artists/3201 Käthe Kollwitz in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art]
* [https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/kathe_kollwitz/ Käthe Kollwitz Exhibition] at the [[Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art]] at the [[Brooklyn Museum]]
* [http://www.nmwa.org/collection/profile.asp?LinkID=511 Käthe Kollwitz exhibit with the National Museum of Women in the Arts] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120331052956/http://www.nmwa.org/collection/profile.asp?LinkID=511 |date=31 March 2012 }}
* {{PM20|FID=pe/010127}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kollwitz, Käthe}}
[[Category:Käthe Kollwitz| ]]
[[Category:1867 births]]
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[[Category:Artists from Königsberg]]
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