European

Kathe Kollwitz

Germany 1867-1945
Tod und Frau (Death and woman) 2002.0001

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Death and Woman is a tour-de-force of Kollwitz's skills as an etcher and represents the agony Kollwitz felt when confronted with the suffering caused by war. After Kollwitz moved to a poor section of Berlin in 1891 she gained first hand knowledge of the wretched conditions in which the urban poor lived. Her sensitivity to the lower classes inspired a sense of protest against the working conditions of the day and led to two of her most famous print series, Weaver's Revolt (1893-1897) and The Peasant's War (1902-1908). After she lost her son in WWI, her themes centered on death and pacifism and the timeless subject matter of mother and child. After Hitler came to power in 1933, she was dismissed from her teaching duties at the Berlin Academy, and even though her imagery was used without her permission by the Nazis for propaganda purposes, her political views relegated her to the ranks of artists who were labeled "degenerate" by the Nazis.

 

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