Twenty-four drawings, reproduced as high-quality collotype prints, published in a portfolio and issued in three editions to meet the high demand from a wide audience: in 1920, Käthe Kollwitz published the so-called Richter Portfolio – an edition that today reads like a personal Best-of her work to date.
The Kollwitz Museum Köln is now placing this selection, made by the artist herself, at the heart of its new collection presentation.
The selection of the 24 drawings [...] is a very skilful one; it includes sketches for the major etching cycles, for individual prints, independent drawings and a powerful self-portrait by the artist. The portfolio is therefore ideally suited to attracting new members to the large community of Käthe Kollwitz’s admirers.«
Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945)
is renowned for her social commitment and political engagement, her emotional intensity and her unmistakably compelling art. Already in demand by collections around the world during her lifetime, Cologne has been home since 1984 to the first museum dedicated exclusively to this great German artist. Derived from her estate and bequeathed to the museum by her heirs, the Kollwitz Museum Köln now holds the world’s most comprehensive collection of her works. The new exhibition, featuring more than 100 drawings, etchings, lithographs, woodcuts and sculptures, provides an overview of her oeuvre spanning nearly six decades – from the era of the German Empire to the end of the Second World War.
The »Richter–Portfolio«
The presentation is complemented and expanded upon by the twenty-four collotype prints that Kollwitz published in 1920 under the title ›Käthe Kollwitz. Handzeichnungen in originalgetreuen Wiedergaben‹ (›Käthe Kollwitz. Drawings in Faithful Reproductions‹) with her Dresden-based publisher, Emil Richter. The portfolio contains works dating from 1894 and extending to the period after the First World War. Alongside preliminary studies for her print cycles, the artist selected depictions of mothers and children, works on loss and mourning, and drawings addressing social injustices.
By integrating the reproductions into the presentation of the collection and establishing a direct link to the original works, a new perspective on Kollwitz’s artistic self-image is revealed. Which works did she select? What does the publication of such a portfolio reveal about her understanding of art and art collecting? The answers to these questions are as fascinating as they are surprising.
Spotlight on Collotype
Particularly noteworthy is the decision to use the elaborate collotype process. Unlike simpler reproduction techniques, this process allowed for the exceptionally precise reproduction of the drawings and their subtle tonal gradations. The exhibition therefore focuses not only on the personal selection of works, but also on the technical and aesthetic characteristics of collotype printing.
In this way, they [the drawings] remain together, whereas otherwise they would be scattered to the four winds in a few years’ time, and I also retain something in my own hands.«
