Kathe Kollwitz

Kollwitz was an artist that I learned about in my German Culture class. She was born in the late 1800s and lived through imperial Germany, through WWI, then the Weimar Republic, then the Nazi take-over and WWII, and finally the division of Germany into East and West. Her husband was a doctor in the poor part of Berlin and she was exposed to the great vulnerability of the poor, particularly the women and children. Also, her younger son enlisted in WWI and was killed early into the war. Much of her work involved women and children and the effect of war and nationalism upon the vulnerable. Here are some examples. Some of her work chokes me up.