Käthe Kollwitz is a brilliant master of engraving and drawing, a brilliant sculptor and the first artist to become an honorary professor at the Berlin Academy of Arts
Käthe Kollwitz (Käthe Kollwitz; July 8, 1867 – April 22, 1945) – the famous German artist of the late XIX – first half of the XX centuries, a prominent representative of expressionism and social realism. She was an outstanding graphic artist, creating hundreds of etchings, lithographs and woodcuts, as well as several thousand unique drawings during her career.
Käthe Kollwitz was active in anti-war activities for many years, but never belonged to any political party. For her beliefs, she was repeatedly subjected to repression by the authorities. After Hitler came to power in 1933, the artist’s works were completely withdrawn from museums due to inconsistency with the principles of the ideology of the Third Reich.
Biography
Käthe Kollwitz (nee Schmidt) was born on July 8, 1867 in Königsberg in the family of a builder. Parents favorably treated their daughter’s passion for drawing. At the age of 14, she was sent to study with the local painter Rudolf Mauer.
In 1885, the girl entered the Ladies’ Academy at the Berlin Association of Women Artists. Then she continued her studies at the Königsberg, and later at the Munich Higher School of Arts. While still a student, she became interested in graphics, created her first engravings. During this time, she met a doctor named Karl Kollwitz. The young people passionately fell in love with each other and in 1891 Käthe married him. The marriage turned out to be happy, the Kolvits lived in harmony for almost fifty years. They had two sons. Shortly after the wedding, the couple moved to Berlin and settled on the outskirts of the capital of the German Empire. Carl got a job at a hospital for the poor. And Käthe enthusiastically took up the creation of engravings on acute social topics.
Career
The young artist became widely known already in 1898, after her series of etchings entitled “The Rise of the Weavers” was presented at the Berlin Exhibition. At the same time, Keta was offered to lead a master class in graphics at the Ladies’ Academy. Kollwitz devoted more than 30 years to teaching and brought up many talented students.
The artist created her first sculpture in 1910. Although international recognition was brought to her by graphic works. Her cycle of engravings, The Peasant War, brought her the main prize of the Villa Romana Prize, established by Max Klinger. Käthe Kollwitz is the first woman to receive this prestigious award. Then she was elected a full member of the German Association of Artists and the Berlin Secession.
The happy life of a brilliant woman changed forever in 1914. Her two sons volunteered for the front, and the youngest of them (Peter) died in the first battle at the age of 18. This terrible tragedy caused a protracted creative depression of the artist. She fiercely hated the war and remained a fierce pacifist until the end of her life.
last years of life
Until the mid-1930s, Kollwitz’s career continued to develop successfully. In the political sphere, Käthe sympathized with the socialists and openly opposed the coming to power of the fascists. Gradually, she gained great prestige in the German artistic environment.
But after Hitler’s victory in the elections to the Bundestag in 1933, the situation in the country began to change rapidly. The Nazis forced the artist to resign from her position as a professor at the Berlin Academy. Influential foreign friends persuaded Kollwitz to leave Germany, but she decided to stay in her native country.
In 1940, Käthe buried her beloved husband. And three years later, at the invitation of the Duke of Saxony, Ernst Heinrich, she moved permanently to the small town of Moritzburg. Käthe Kollwitz did not live just 16 days before the end of World War II and died on April 22, 1945 at the age of 77. Her remains today rest in the Friedrichsfelde cemetery in Berlin, in the same grave with her husband.
