Kollwitz-Digital
Grandfather Julius Rupp *13 August 1809 Königsberg; † 1884 ibid. “Man does not exist to be happy, but that he may fulfill his duty.” Inscription on the memorial stone of Julius Rupp The engraved writing on Julius Rupp’s gravestone already tells us a lot about his strict yet benevolent personality. Käthe Kollwitz once described him […]
Friendship was of great meaning for Käthe Kollwitz. Despite different personal struggles and political changes, she maintained many friendships throughout her life. Käthe Kollwitz’s political commitment was deeply influenced by her family. Her older brother Konrad and her husband Karl were members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The artist herself was involved in many […]
What kind of city was it? Berlin became the capital of the German Empire in 1871. Industrialization was in full swing, many factories and companies had settled outside the city walls, and suburbs such as Moabit and Wedding were incorporated in the city. In 1905, more than two million people lived in the Berlin metropolitan […]
Come close to Käthe Kollwitz and look at her face. She engaged in self-critical dialogues with herself in each of her creative periods. She thus created numerous self-portraits, which you will encounter in the exhibition among her other works. More than 100 self-portraits can be found in Käthe Kollwitz’s oeuvre, from which this early self-portrait […]
A graphic series about the uprising of the Silesian weavers in 1844. The first three lithographs depict misery, hardship and despair in the weavers’ families, while the following three etchings tell of the uprising and its fatal outcome. As a young artist and new mother Käthe Kollwitz sat in the audience of the Freie Bühne […]
Intended as the final sheet of the cycle A Weavers’ Revolt This etching was designed by Käthe Kollwitz as the seventh and last sheet of her cycle A Weavers’ Revolt. As the final piece, it provides a concluding commentary on the events in the preceding six art works. Upon showing the graphic cycle to the […]
A narrow, horizontal intaglio print from 1893 depicts a scene from Émile Zola’s novel in which two men fight over a woman in an empty tavern. “There was [während der Studienzeit der Künstlerin in München] an association [during the artist’s student days in Munich] that brought together some girls from our class with Otto Greiner, […]
Of the 275 printed works that Käthe Kollwitz created, almost half are lithographs. Already in her early works and then especially in the second half of her life, she used this technique to achieve a broad impact with large editions, posters and leaflets. Etching, on the other hand, is found only in the artist’s early […]
Series of 7 etchings about the uprisings during the German Peasants’ War from 1524 to 1526 Käthe Kollwitz again turns to a historical event. The uprisings of peasants against the oppressive living conditions in the 16th century ended with a bloody defeat. Kollwitz reworks the subject into a non-historically defined, timeless depiction of suffering and […]
Käthe Kollwitz’s art works on the theme of Woman with Dead Child are another highlight. Käthe Kollwitz intensively engaged with this theme from 1903 onwards, in connection with her work on the Peasants’ War. In the early etching of 1903 she already dealt with the motif of maternal mourning and took it up again in […]
