Biographies

Chronology from the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Berlin:

1867 born on July 8th in Konigsberg, East Prussia

1885-90 studies with Stauffer-Bern (Berlin) and with Herterich (Munich)

1890 first etchings

1891 marries Dr. Karl Kollwitz who settles in a working class area of north Berlin

1892 son Hans is born

1896 son Peter is born

1898 the graphic cycle The Weavers’ Rebellion is shown at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung

1898-1903 teaches at the Berlin School of Women Artists

1902-08 works on the series Peasant War

1904 visits Paris, meets with Rodin and Steinlen

1907 spends one year in Florence (Villa Romana Prize)

1910 first attempts with sculpture

1914 son Peter falls in Flanders

1917 fiftieth birthday exhibition at Paul Cassirer’s in Berlin

1919 becomes a member of the Prussian Academy of Art

1919/20 works on a commemorating woodcut dedicated to Karl Liebknecht, a revolutionary socialist, assassinated in 1919

1922/25 woodcut series War and Proletariat

1927 journey to Moscow

1928 head of the Master Class for the Graphic Arts at the Academy

1932 dedication of the war memorial The Parents at the military cemetery in Vladsloo, Flanders

1933 Hitler comes to power; after resignation from the Prussian Academy of Art Kollwitz looses her position as head of the Master Class for the Graphic Arts

1934/35 cycle of eight Lithographs titled Death

1936 is not allowed to exhibit anymore; her works are removed from museums and galleries

1940 Karl Kollwitz dies

1943/44 evacuated to Nordhausen; moves to Moritzburg´near Dresden upon invitation of Prince Ernst Heinrich of Saxony

1945 dies on April 22nd in Moritzburg shortly before the end of the war.

Information about her and images of her work are widely available on the World Wide Web.

Death, Mother, and Child (1910)
— Kollwitz, Käthe

In Memory of Karl Liebknecht, 1919/20
— Kollwitz, Käthe

Prisoners (1908)
— Kollwitz, Käthe

Self Portrait of Kathe Kollwitz (old)
— Kollwitz, Kathe

Self Portrait of Kathe Kollwitz (young)
— Kollwitz, Kathe

The March of the Weavers (1897)
— Kollwitz, Käthe