Kathe Kollwitz Critical Study

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Käthe Kollwitz was born on 8 July 1867, into a large middle-class family, in Königsberg, East Prussia. She studied painting in Berlin and Munich but devoted herself primarily to etchings, drawings, lithographs, and woodcuts. She gained firsthand knowledge of the miserable conditions of the urban poor when her physician husband opened a clinic in Berlin.

At the age of seventeen Kollwitz moved to Berlin for a year of study at the ‘Künstlerinnenschule’ (‘School for Female Artists’). There she was influenced by one of her teachers, Karl Stauffer-Bern. Kollwitz wanted to paint, but her teacher directed her again and again to take up drawing. He encouraged her to visit an exhibition of the German etcher Max Klinger. Following Klinger, she began creating etchings, lithographs and woodcuts, eventually abandoning painting for graphics.
Kollwitz designed many posters for humanitarian organisations to fight the post-war misery and to warn against new wars. She was devastated by the death of her own Son in the war and gave expression to her grief through her work. She declared that from now on her work would be in the service of peace.
In the time periods of the Weimar Republic (1919–33) Kollwitz was very successful. In 1919 she became the first woman to be admitted to the Preussische Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and received the title of professor. She had been running a studio in printmaking since 1928, and in 1929 she was awarded the Prussian decorationPour le mérite. In 1932 she participated in a petitionary action against the Nazis.
During her life Kollwitz aimed to give expression through her art to the feelings and emotions that move people, especially the poor, and to show the hard and often unfair lives that they had to lead. H...

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...and History, which connects to the time period in which history was made- the first and Second World War. Typically, the art of war and the outcome of war portrays a very depressed environment which Kollwitz skilfully explores. The time period in which the artist lived in gives me access to primary sources of what it was like during this era of war which I can examine and apply to my own work. It also connects to the disosrdly theme I am exploring because the technique looks rough, conflicted and chaotic. The aggressive lines Kollwitz used have also helped me understand how to use a material and create emotion in this deep way. I admire this most about Kollwitz’s work because structure, form, emotion, and a message have been achieved through one colour and hard lines. I also admire how she shown her purpose and consistently portrayed these rough areas of life.
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