Year 10 Art German Expressionism

Käthe Kollwitz 
(German, 1867-1945): 
Death and Tragedy

Kathe Kollwitz 
(1867-1945)
An artist and woman of great courage.















Kathe Kollwitz Interesting Facts

1. Her most famous art cycles, including The Weavers and The Peasant War, depict the effects of poverty, hunger, and war on the working class.
2. Kathe was born in 1867 in Konigsberg, East Prussia (now Kalingrad in Russia).
3. She studied art in Berlin and began producing etchings in 1880 In 1881 she married Dr Karl Kollwitz and they settled in a working class area of north Berlin. In 1896 her second son, Peter, was born.
4. In 1914 her son Peter was killed in Flanders. The loss of Peter contributed to her socialist and pacifist political sympathies. In 1919 she worked on a commemorative woodcut dedicated to Karl Liebknecht, the revolutionary socialist murdered in 1919.