Käthe Kollwitz, a German artist who died in 1945, is finally getting the recognition she deserves for her powerful depictions of human suffering. Her work, which often focused on the pain of war and poverty, was dismissed by some critics as “pessimistic” but is now seen as a testament to her compassion and empathy.
Kollwitz was a member of the Berlin Secession, a group of artists who rejected academic tradition. She preferred to focus on the human figure and monochrome palettes, rather than the colorful abstractions that came to define Modernism. This led some Modernists to dismiss her as a “social-democratic agitator.”
Despite the criticism, Kollwitz’s work was highly praised by other artists, including Charles Dickens and Vincent van Gogh. She was also a successful printmaker, and her work was published in magazines and exhibited in galleries across the West.
In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in Kollwitz’s work. Two major exhibitions, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Staedel Museum in Frankfurt, have helped to introduce her to a new generation of viewers. These exhibitions have shown that Kollwitz was a radical artist, both in her vision and her medium. She was not afraid to depict the harsh realities of life, and her work is a powerful reminder of the human cost of war and poverty.
