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I first encountered Käthe Kollwitz's work in compelling, but isolated, examples of her work in galleries in North America and was intrigued by her extraordinary artistic skill and humanity. In December 2019, I was therefore thrilled to catch Portrait of the artist Käthe Kollwitz at the British Museum in London, an exhibition of a small selection of prints of her drawings, lithographs, and woodcuts.
Kollwitz practised as an artist in Germany in a male-dominated art world. Now internationally known, chiefly as a printmaker, she was also a renowned sculptor. She believed passionately in art's potential as a social force for good. Through it, she testified to her concern for the poor and oppressed (especially women and children) in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany. Although necessarily selective, this exhibition's collection nonetheless succeeded in representing the breadth of her oeuvre and in communicating its raw messages of outrage, grief, and compassion. Although now ended, it is gratifying to see that Kollwitz's work can readily be seen online (links listed below).
Kollwitz's work is disturbing—as she intended it to be. She compels us to see humanity's inhumanity. Sometimes the inhumanity is wilful, such as Vergewaltigt ; sometimes less directly inflicted, as in Not (Need/Poverty, 1893-7). Her subjects demand our attention to experiences we would rather avoid, such as Ende (End, 1893-7), or remind us of fears we would rather repress, like Frau mit totem Kind (Woman with Dead Child, ). The images shout to us, and perhaps because they are in black and white, they leave an indelibly imprinted visual memory, which becomes iconic of the feeling they contain. Kollwitz herself also calls to us through her self-portraits; her compassionate, if somewhat weary gaze follows us around the exhibit, reminding us that she was there, that she lived through these times. Considering her choice to amplify her subjects as she did we should not be surprised to disco