Käthe Kollwitz was born
July 8, 1867 in Königsberg (a city which was
then under Prussian rule but now lies in Russia's domain) and died April 22,
1945 in Moritzburg, Germany. Kollwitz's was the 5th of 7 children, her
childhood consisted of religious upbringing, and in in many cases
paralleled that of her adulthood in which her mother also lost children and had
dealt with much grief in her life because of it an events that haunted her for
the rest of her life, personally responsible for the youngest child's
(Benjamin) death. In her youth she showed to have a talent for the arts, of
which her father encouraged to the point of suggesting she not marry as the likelihood of
a woman artist continuing to make art after marriage at the time was low,
though his efforts were only slightly in vain as she did meet and fall in
love with Karl. Though she was married and started a family she did not let it
stop her from making art. As a humanitarian Karl's job as a physician allowed
for them to be among the people of which her art spoke of. She won a few awards
in her life time, and much to the Kaiser's dismay continued to make work that
called for action to be taken in the betterment of civilian lives, even after
the Nazi regime went through their giant purge of art. Kollwitz later lost her
youngest Son and Grandson (both named Peter) to the wars, around the time her
Grandson died her husband passed as well., these events had a great impact on
her production of work as she was heavily depressed. Not long after this her
home was destroyed in an air raid during the war which caused her to move to
the Moritzburg
estate of Prince Ernst Heinrich of Saxony, where she lived the rest of her
life. Käthe Kollwitz was an amazing artist who dreamed
of family, love, and something more than pacifism, that of a world that was
entirely anti-war.
Bibliography:
Coulter, Helga “Pictures on My
Analyst’s Walls: Reflections on the Art of Kathe Kollwitz, the Nazis and the
Art of Psychoanalyis.” British Journal of
Psychotherapy Issue 4, no.32 (2016)
Ingrid Sharp.
"Kääthe Kollwitz's Witness to War: Gender, Authority, and
Reception." Women in German Yearbook 27 (2011): 87-107.
Piotrowski,
Piotr, Art Beyond Borders Artistic Exchange in Communist Europe. Pascal
Dubourg Glatigny, and Jerôme Bazin. (1945-1989) Budapest, New
York: Central European University Press, 2016.
Price, Dorothy. Between Us Sleeps Our Child—art: Creativity,
Identity, and the Maternal in the Works of Marianne Von Werefkin and Her
Contemporaries. In Marianne
Werefkin and the Women Artists in Her Circle, edited by Malycheva Tanja
and Wünsche Isabel, 106-22. LEIDEN; BOSTON: Brill, 2017
Proctor, Tammy M. Conclusion: Consequences of World War I.
In Civilians in a World at War,
1914-1918, 267-76. NYU Press, 2010.
Weitz, Eric D. Weimar
Germany: Promise and Tragedy, Weimar Centennial Edition, 7-40. PRINCETON;
OXFORD: Princeton University Press, 2018.
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