Classes for women in Potsdamer Street
Käthe Kollwitz’s first place of work in Berlin was the teaching studio of the Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen und Kunstfreundinnen zu Berlin on Askanischer Platz in 1897. Barely 10 years earlier she had attended a course of the association herself.
In 1893, the association bought its own building for the Drawing and Painting School for Women, founded in 1868, at Potsdamer Strasse 39, now number 98a. The school was the first in the German-speaking world to offer women professional artistic training. Art academies denied women the opportunity to study. The Association of Berlin Women Artists (VdBK) made Käthe Kollwitz an honorary member in 1940. It still exists today and is closely associated with the Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Berlin.
The large brick building sits in an open, bright backyard with tall maple trees. An educational institution for women occupied the ground and second floors, and the school’s six classrooms and a large skylight hall were located on the second and third floors. Paula Modersohn-Becker took classes here from 1896 to 1898. From 1897 to 1903, Käthe Kollwitz taught the subjects of nude drawing, lithography and etching. In 1911, due to great demand, the school moved to a specially constructed, larger building at Schöneberger Ufer 38, today house number 71. In 1935, this was forcibly auctioned off under the Nazis.
After 1945, publishing houses, galleries and photo studios repeatedly occupied this building on Potsdamer Strasse. Today, it is home to a letterpress printing workshop, an architect’s office, and the Camaro Art Foundation.
Signs along the street refer to the history of the house. There is nothing on the house on Schöneberger Ufer to commemorate the school for women artists. Instead, there is a memorial plaque for the art dealer Ferdinand Möller, who had a gallery there until 1939. Just a few houses away, the Association of Berlin Artists has been located there since 1965. Until 1990, it only accepted male artists.
