Kathe Kollwitz in Berlin, 1890-1925

This third rotation of works on paper in the 20th Century Galleries focuses on Käthe Kollwitz, a German printmaker and sculptor. Kollwitz, like Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) and Honore Daumier (1808-79), used printmaking throughout her career to express social and political concerns, exploiting the graphic qualities of woodcut, lithography and etching. Her subjects were inspired by her life experiences, modern history, and the writings of Émile Zola, Gerhardt Hauptmann,

and Wilhelm Zimmermann.

Against the odds at the beginning of the 20th century, Kollwitz balanced life as an artist, wife, and mother. Her first print series, "A Weavers' Rebellion," based on the Peasants' War (1524-26), was awarded a gold medal in 1898, later rescinded by Kaiser Wilhelm II. In 1907 she received the Villa Romana Prize established by Max Klinger, an artist who influenced her work. She became the first female artist to be admitted to the Berlin Academy of Art (1919). She had been appointed head of the "Master Class for Graphic Arts" by 1928, but in 1933 she was stripped of her academy post by the National Socialist Party. Kollwitz was barred from exhibiting from 1936 onwards. Her graphic oeuvre spanned four decades and two world wars and included over three hundred prints and hundreds of drawings.