Summary: Käthe Kollwitz: The Life and Work Of a Determined Woman

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Käthe Ida Schmidt was born on July 8, 1867 in Königsberg, East Prussia, which is now Kaliningrad, Russia, and was later married to become Käthe Kollwitz whose name we know and recognize today. Käthe was raised in a middle-class family and a politically radical and religious home. Her parents, Katharina and Karl Schmidt, had seven children together, however only four survived into childhood. Her parents attentively looked after their surviving daughters and did their best to mold and educate them to the best of their abilities.

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The loss of Käthe’s siblings greatly shaped her future artwork not only from the sadness and trauma she went through growing up, but also by watching her mother mourn her children whilst still being a good mother and working through the sorrow that she felt. Käthe would implement these observations of her mother into her many works that depicted mourning.

Käthe Schmidt had immense support from her parents and family for her artistic ambitions.

In 1881 she began studying engraving under Rudolf Mauer and later began studying a combination of painting and printmaking in Munich at the Women’s School of Art. Käthe struggled with feeling as though her painting career was not seeming to fit her or her style correctly and soon she became inspired by Max Klinger. Klinger promoted the use of drawing over painting in art and this resulted in Käthe determining that instead of painting she would become a printmaker. She pursued printmaking with great enthusiasm and she most definitely found her niche.

Around the time of this discovery she met, got engaged to, and married Dr. Karl Kollwitz. After Käthe and Karl became engaged, her father desperately tried to convince her not to get married and even chose to send her away to Munich to continue her education to keep her from being wed. Instead, Käthe received her education, graduated, and still returned and married Karl in 1891. Shortly after, the two moved to Berlin where Karl opened a physician’s practice.

At this time in the art world, female artists were struggling to find relevancy and to be able to receive educations and be considered equals to their male counterparts. Many of them didn’t marry or didn’t have children because being a wife and a mother added to the rift between them and the male artists. Kollwitz struggled with negative opinions from her parents and also these female artists. Kollwitz stayed headstrong and worked hard to balance both her life as a talented, dedicated artist and a devoted mother and wife. Shortly after being married, she gave birth to her first son Hans in 1892, her second son Peter in 1896, and even adopted a boy named Georg Gretor in 1904. Kollwitz had been influenced immensely by her own mother on how to be the best she could be to her children, and her husband, Karl, helped to make sure all of Käthe’s dreams and ambitions could be met.

Karl opened up his practice in the city and Käthe’s studio was directly close to it. Many working-class women visited the practice with their children, and sometimes alone, and Käthe’s exposure to these women greatly influenced her future successful subject matter. Kollwitz would sit and talk with the women and learn all about their struggles and life and she did her best to feel what they felt; this is what made her art so great, her empathy. Another great impact on Kollwitz’s career was the performance of Die Weber by Gerhart Hauptmann. This performance aided Kollwitz to essentially come into her already resident political and social stance. Kollwitz produced a series of prints titled The Weavers which completely transformed her career. The prints morphed her into someone who celebrated fighting for what is right, and the work was beautiful and emotion-filled; she received a Gold Medal for the work. In general, most of Kollwitz’s work after this turning point revolved around her social and political stance. She created prints that exposed the poverty in Berlin and how it affected men, women, and children alike. She was adamantly on the side of middle-class workers and especially women and mothers. She produced her prints and priced them in a way that even some of the poorest people would have access to them; she even had them circulated in magazines. She truly believed in her work and helping people.

During World War I, Käthe’s son Peter died whilst in a battle in Belgium. This understandably devastated her and also set her into motion on a lifelong path of pacifism. Kollwitz’s overall work in art was magnified by the death of her son. At this time, her work entered into the Expressionist movement. Kollwitz herself didn’t identify with Expressionism, but no matter how hard she tried to put herself into naturalism or realism due to her emotional work, she never could shake the “expressionist” label. This is probably due to how Expressionists were labeled this way if they were leftists. Around 1920, her eyesight began to fade, which prompted her to explore new mediums of art. Instead of etching and lithography, she turned to woodcuts and even sculpture. Her sculpture career actually began with a memorial bust of her grandfather. Hollwitz was viewed as Germany’s most successful female artist during her mature period. However, with the onset of World War II, things began to change.

During Käthe’s late years, things declined quickly. She was vehemently anti-war, and the Nazi regime despised her, her views, and the stance she held in politics and social aspects. They relentlessly threatened her, and she actually feared placing her son Peter’s memorial due to not knowing what they would do to it. She was threatened with being placed into a concentration camp, forced to leave the Prussian Academy, and both Käthe and Karl carried poison with them in case they were captured by the Nazi’s. The Kollwitz’s fell into poverty but still held strong to their beliefs and stayed in Germany. Karl passed away in 1940 and shortly after, in 1942, Käthe’s grandson, Peter, died in World War II in Russia. Kollwitz was truly surviving some of the worst things we can imagine. In 1943, she left her Berlin home which was later destroyed by bombs not long after she successfully evacuated. Her work, letters, photographs, and memories of her husband and children, especially her deceased son, Peter, and grandson Peter, were all destroyed forever. Käthe was at her lowest point and deeply saddened by the way things had turned out. She even asked her surviving son, Hans, for permission to commit suicide, which he begged for her to wait as she played a strong role in the anti-war movement. On April 22, 1945, Kollwitz died in Moritzburg, Germany at the age of seventy-eight. Heart failure was ruled her cause of death, and it is not surprising seeing as how much heartbreak she had been through.

Käthe Hollwitz was instrumental in creating validity for female artists. She was an internationally known artist and the first woman professor to be invited to the Prussian Academy. Her strength and stance in the anti-war movement still effects similar movements today. She was on the side of working-class people and cared for them and their rights deeply; she made them feel worthy of general life rights. Her work as an artist was beautiful, resonating, intense, and above all – empathetic. She quite obviously cared for people who were going through unfair circumstances and wanted to bring light to these issues. Poverty, abuse, and neglect were all things she believed no one deserved to go through, so she printed and etched things that brought light to how horrible they were. Kollwitz used easy to understand subject matter in clear executions that helped both fortunate people understand the unfortunate circumstance others were going through, but she also helped build strength in those in situations all too similar to what she was producing. She was a beautiful woman who produced beautiful work and stood for beautiful things.