Käthe Kollwitz

Exhibition Catalogue Käthe Kollwitz, presented at MoMA, New York (Until July 20, 2024).

In the early 20th century, when many artists were experimenting with abstraction by way of colorful painting, Käthe Kollwitz remained committed to an art of social purpose through figurative, black-and-white printmaking and drawing. Through her work, she brought visibility to the hardships of the working class and asserted the female point of view as a necessary and powerful agent for change.

Published in conjunction with the largest exhibition of her work in the United States in more than 30 years, and the first major retrospective devoted to Kollwitz at a New York museum, this book surveys the artist’s career from the 1890s through the early 1940s. It features approximately 120 drawings, prints and sculptures drawn from public and private collections in Europe and North America. Examples of the artist’s most iconic projects showcase her political engagement, while rarely seen studies and working proofs highlight her intensive, ever-searching creative process. Essays explore crucial aspects of Kollwitz’s art, career and legacy, including her professional life and connections in Berlin, her groundbreaking approach to the subject of women’s grief and her work’s reception among artists in the US.

Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was born in the Prussian city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). One of history’s most outstanding graphic artists, she was widely recognized for her art of social advocacy and compassion and was one of the few women artists of the early 20th century to achieve international renown in her own lifetime.