Timeline —
Käthe Kollwitz

The woman who spurs on the peasants in this folio was inspired by the ›Schwarze Hofmännin‹ - one of the few historically documented women in the Peasants’ War – who blessed and encouraged the peasants before they stormed the town of Weinsberg.
Kollwitz read about the woman in Wilhelm Zimmermann’s (1807-1878) »General History of the Great Peasants War«. Early drawings and prints suggest that she had planned to devote the entire cycle to this woman who frequently appeared in novels about the Peasants War around 1900, but who was otherwise historically undocumented.

Today, the Berlin collection comprises 320 prints (proofs and final versions) and 143 drawings by the artist from all phases of her work. 120 drawings were donated by Dr Hans Kollwitz in 1964.

It was above all her visit to Rodin’s studio in Meudon which left a deep and lasting impression. Her obituary for Rodin, published in 1917 in the middle of the First World War in the Sozialistische Monatshefte, summarised her memories and the importance of the artist for her own work:

In 1904, Käthe Kollwitz approached the Association of Historical Art for funding to continue her »Peasants’ War« cycle and submitted two of her latest prints – »Charge«, Kn 70, and the individual folio »Woman with Dead Child«, Kn 81.

Max Lehrs (1855-1938), director of the Dresden Print Room, assisted her in this matter as the Association of Historical Art held their convention in Dresden in 1904 and elected him member of a committee to suggest a selection of works of graphic art. It only took Lehrs ten minutes to convince the commission to accept Kollwitz’ cycle by presenting them with the artist’s best works from the collection of the Print Room.

The Kunsthandlung Emil Richter in Dresden, who sold Kollwitz’s works as early as 1899, participated in the acquisition provided that the artist transferred the selling rights to him. Between 1908 and 1910 the art dealer secured the exclusive right to edit all new prints by the artist and in 1918 acquired almost all the existing etching and lithograph plates from Käthe Kollwitz.

The majority of the artist's lithographs, including almost all the colour lithographs, were printed by Hermann Birkholz (?-1927) in Berlin - including the »Self-portrait, frontal view« from 1904, one of her most highly traded prints on the art market today. The few prints of this work were acquired by her most important collectors during the lifetime of the artist. They included Erich Cohn, Campbell Dodgson, Geheimrat Helferich, Ackermann & Sauerwein, Johanna and Walter Wolf, Salman Schocken and her later editor Alexander von der Becke.

Berlin was the centre of the German cottage textile industry. The exhibition was an enormous success and was conceived by bourgeois social reformers and labour unions. It was the first major exhibition of its kind in Germany and aimed at drawing attention to the low wages of cottage industry workers and their catastrophic working and living conditions.

There was a rumour which came up in the Weimar Republic that the Kaiserin had refused to visit the exhibition as long as the poster was publically displayed.

The Kunsthandlung Emil Richter participated in the acquisition of printing plates on the condition that the artist transferred the selling rights to him. Between 1908 and 1910, the art dealer secured the exclusive right to edit all new printing plates by Kollwitz. In 1918 he acquired almost all the existing etching and lithograph plates from the artist.

Around 1908 there are several diary entries on visits to female patients of her husband where she describes the severity and tragedy of proletarian life.

In 14 drawings for the satirical magazine she directly addressed the problems of the proletariat and her graphic works increasingly became an instrument of social and political commitment.

When several Expressionists left the Berlin Secession in 1910 to found the Neue Secession, Käthe Kollwitz initially referred to their works as ›talented scribblings‹ [in: Tagebücher (Diaries), April 1910].

After visiting a Black-and-White Exhibition of the Neue Secession in early October 1910, the artist finally saw the positive aspects of this new trend, and her woodcuts from the 1920s are clearly Expressionist in character:

Berlin and its metropolitan area saw a massive inward migration from the late 19th century. As a reaction, several communities founded the Zweckverband Groß-Berlin (Greater Berlin Administration Union) in 1911 in order to coordinate housing projects, protect recreational areas and unify public transport.

In 1912 architects and town-planners who found that their views had not been sufficiently taken into consideration founded a propaganda committee and used the poster to call for demonstrations.

Her works were to be included in a 13-part pictorial broadsheet in the section Die Frau in der Wohlfahrtspflege (Women in Social Welfare Work), in which women artists explored the development of social care for female prisoners in the 19th century. For this reason, the authorities in Berlin for the first time granted permission to make drawings in prisons.

The exhibition Die Frau in Haus und Beruf (Women at Home and Work), organised by the Berlin Lyceums Club gave an overview of the activities of the 9.5 million working women in Germany and included the areas of education, farming, social work, trade and transport, nursing and journalism. In the fine-arts section, a selection of 250 works by women artists from Germany, Paris, London, Florence and Rome were exhibited.