On the history of a poster
Behind every work of art is a history of its creation and also, usually, of its collection, which is not always known. Our museum collection contains the poster Mothers, share your Abundance!, a work by Käthe Kollwitz whose complete history we owe to the commitment and generosity of Marie-Elise Kayser’s family.
The pediatrician Marie-Elise Kayser (1885-1950) knew of the great nutritional advantages of breast milk from her clinic in Magdeburg. Noticing the surplus of her own milk after the birth of her children, she came up with the idea of systematically collecting women’s milk, especially through private donors, and giving it to needy children outside the clinic. On May 19, 1919, she set up Germany’s first women’s milk collection point at the infant department in Magdeburg’s Altstadt Hospital. She was committed to this cause throughout her life, created numerous publications, produced a guide for the establishment and operation of women’s milk collection points, and even made an educational and promotional film. In the 1930s and 1940s, there were collection centers based on Marie-Elise Kayser’s model in almost all major German cities; to this day, there are still about 33 of them throughout Germany.
Economic conditions were difficult in the 1920s, and Marie-Elise Kayser wanted to reach a large audience with her idea. Therefore, in 1921, she wrote a letter to Käthe Kollwitz, asking the famous artist for a poster design to draw attention to breast milk donation. Käthe Kollwitz was enthusiastic about the idea and agreed. But other commissioned work intervened and it was not until November 1926, by which time Marie-Elise Kayser was living and working in Erfurt, that she was able to complete the poster: „Mothers, share your Abundance!“
Marie-Elise Kayser kept Käthe Kollwitz’s letters as well as correspondence with the Birkholz printing company in Berlin, which printed the posters for her. After printing was completed, the litho stone was also passed into her possession. Shortly after the opening of the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Berlin in May 1986, the Kayser family donated the printing stone and a copy of the poster to the museum collection. Later the family also decided to give the correspondence into our care. We sincerely thank them and with this beautiful provenance we can also preserve Marie-Elise Kayser’s work for posterity.
