Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was a German artist renowned for her expressive printmaking, sculpture, and drawings that depicted the struggles of the working class and the human consequences of war.
Kollwitz’s work is marked by its social realism and expressionist style, emphasizing the human condition, injustice, and maternal grief. Her earliest acclaimed series, The Weavers (1893–1897), was inspired by Gerhart Hauptmann’s play about oppressed Silesian weavers. The cycle illustrated poverty, suffering, courage, and the eventual doom of the working class.
During and after World War I, she created several cycles addressing the horrors of war and personal grief, including War (1922–1923), Death (1934–1936), and the memorial The Grieving Parents (1932), commemorating the loss of her younger son Peter in 1914 near Dixmuiden, Belgium.
Her artwork often highlighted mothers’ suffering, children’s vulnerability, and the consequences of social inequity, blending naturalism with emotionally simplified, impactful forms.
In July 1936, she and her husband were visited by the Gestapo, who threatened her with arrest and deportation to a Nazi concentration camp; they resolved to commit suicide if such a prospect became inevitable. However, Kollwitz was by now a figure of international note, and no further action was taken.
Possibility to buy works online: posters and prints on canvas.