Käthe Kollwitz, Self-Portrait with Raised Arm, 1910, Signed by Hand

Käthe Kollwitz

Königsberg 1867 - 1945 Moritzburg

Self-portrait with arm supported, 1910

etching
Hand-signed in pencil lower right

Sheet size: 21 x 20 cm
Frame: 46 x 45 cm

Elaborately framed, museum glass

Authenticity is guaranteed in writing.

Käthe Kollwitz was born on July 8, 1867 in Königsberg. The father encouraged the girl's inclinations early on and from 1881 enabled her to take lessons with the painter Gustav Naujoks and the engraver Rudolf Mauer. In 1886, Käthe Kollwitz went to Berlin and attended Karl Stauffer-Bern's painting class at the artists' school. In 1887 she was taught by the painter Emil Neide in Königsberg. Kollwitz finally studied in Munich with Ludwig Herterich until 1890. In 1891 she married the doctor Karl Kollwitz, and in the same year she moved to Berlin, where Karl Kollwitz had a medical practice in Prenzlauer Berg.
Käthe Kollwitz's intensive involvement with printmaking techniques began in Berlin and her first independent etchings were created. By engaging with Max Klinger's graphic work and his writing "Painting and Drawing" your enthusiasm for graphic creation is strengthened.
In 1893, Käthe Kollwitz attended the premiere of Gerhart Hauptmann's play "The Webers" in Berlin. She takes up the topic in the graphic sequence "A Weavers' Revolt". In 1898, the artist was nominated for the small gold medal by the jury of the "Great Berlin Art Exhibition" with this work. Max Lehrs, the director of the Dresden Kupferstichkabinett, was deeply impressed by the artist's works and began collecting Käthe Kollwitz's works as early as 1898. As early as 1903, Lehrs published the first catalog raisonné of graphics in the Viennese newspaper “The Graphic Arts”.
from 1898 to 1903 Kollwitz taught at the Berlin School of Artists. In 1903 work began on the graphic series “Peasants’ War”. In 1904 the artist traveled to Paris. She attended the sculpture class at the Académie Julian for a few weeks. She visits Auguste Rodin in his studio and captures life in the market halls and nightclubs in a series of drawings. In 1907, Käthe Kollwitz received a scholarship to the Villa Romana in Florence.
In 1914, the two sons volunteered as soldiers; the younger one died in the first year of the war at the age of 18. Käthe Kollwitz processed the pain of the loss of her beloved child as well as the impressions of hardship and misery during the war in numerous haunting works of art until the early 1930s. Their call for peace is also expressed politically.
In 1919, Käthe Kollwitz received high recognition when she became the first woman to become a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. She receives the title of professor and can set up her own studio in the academy. However, in 1933 she was pressured to leave the academy.
In 1934/35 Kollwitz worked on the lithography series “Death”. Deep resignation and a longing for death spread across her work. In 1942 the lithograph “Seeds should not be ground” was created. Her Berlin studio was destroyed by bombs in 1943. In 1944, Käthe Kollwitz moved into the Rüdenhof near Moritzburg Castle, where Käthe Kollwitz died on April 22, 1945.