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 and witnessed the premiere of The Weavers by Gerhart Hauptmann on February 26, 1893. The play struck her “with an unbelievable force.” (Brief an G. Hauptmann im Januar 1913, Staatsbibliothek Berlin Nachlass GH) At home in her living room studio, she put aside the scene from Émile Zola’s Germinal and set to work on a new cycle that would bring her her artistic breakthrough.
The series was a great success and sold well. Käthe was able to contribute monetarily to the family’s household, and she received a teaching position at the Künstlerinnenschule in Berlin, an art school for women artists.
“(…) I sold the weavers at the big exhibition for five hundred marks. Isn’t that splendid? Finally, finally the Schmerzenskind was ready to be exhibited. I put it in a beautiful frame and sent it to the exhibition. It was excellently hung and already sold on the third day. (…) Five hundred marks, and for a unique (admittedly framed) print. Not even for the printing plates. (…) I have immediately had another frame made and will send the other works around, maybe they will also have luck, and I could use five times five hundred marks as well.”
Beate Bonus-Jeep, Sixty Years of Friendship with Käthe Kollwitz, Berlin 1967, p. 48
