Kaethe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945)

Précis

Kaethe Kollwitz was born in Koenigsberg, East Prussia and studied art in Berlin and Munich. She lived in Berlin for much of her life. Her work was highly expressive, with a strong graphic quality, and much of it was affected by the sorrow surrounding World War I, during which her son Peter died.

Images and information available at
The Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Berlin

Excerpts from her diaries (source)

April 1910

"Last night I was invited to a session of a group who wanted to renew the project for holding the 'juryless' show. It was interesting meeting P. . ., Kober and the two other boys who had been refused by the Secession. Their work meant nothing to me; I thought it all talented smears such as any gifted academy student can turn out. But they think themselves future Manets. P said: I don't give a hoot about a juryless show, I'll make my own way, and so on. Now I already belong to the older generation, to those who have been long arrivés and are blocking the way and taking the light from the youth. It is interesting, this eternally rising wave of the youngest youths. They cannot be understood by the more mature artists and by those who have technique and craftsmanship, for they almost never possess any special superiority. All their superiority lies in the young people's imagination. And yet youth has the right to itself in this highly imaginative future light, just as the no-longer-young have the right to smile at the illusory values of the young and to turn away from them to their maturer concerns."

February 21, 1916

"It is true that my sculptural work is rejected by the public. Why? It is not at all popular. The average spectator does not understand it. Art for the average spectator need not be shallow. Of course he has no objection to the trite -- but it is also true that he would accept true art if it were simple enough. I thoroughly agree that there must be understanding between the artist and the people. In the best ages of art that has always been the case.
     Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways. But the good artists who follow after genius -- and I count myself among these -- have to restore the lost connection once more. A pure studio art is unfruitful and frail, for anything that does not form living roots -- why should it exist at all?"

February 9, 1917

"Today circumstances forced me to interrupt the work on the father and take up the plaster cast of the mother. Sawed off the head and placed it experimentally in an entirely different position. Possibly what I said will come about -- that by continuing to work on the plaster I shall be able to raise myself above the average in one spot first and then, sticking to that, gradually pull up the other parts of the work. Climbing like a snail, creeping, taking the tiniest steps, but at least going upward."

November 1, 1925

"In an essay on Stifter, Bahr expresses very well what seems to me to be the essence of a work of art. He says: Stifter's endeavor as a painter was always either 'to intensify experience to where it reveals its immanent idea; or, when he felt that he had grasped an idea with his inner eye, not to let it affect him as a mere stimulus. Rather, he had to satisfy the profound longing of the idea to be converted into reality.'"

February 13, 1927

"I can scarcely imagine another art which penetrates so deeply into you as music does. Plastic art is concrete; you are confronted by something definite. But here in the adagio it is sheer soul. What I always vaguely envision when I want to do a woman 'who sees the suffering of the world.' Only looks. No words. Goethe was one who could find the words. The 'labyrinth of the breast' or 'the blessed yearning.' Or many others. He had words to stand beside Beethoven's music."

Excerpts from her letters(source)

May 20, 1911

(editor's note: in the National Gallery, exactly which one not specified, looking at French art, initially commenting on an art petition she had recently signed, and then facing all-too-common sexism coming from, of all people, another female artist)

"...I saw French art once more represented in really good works and said to myself that come what may, Gernman art needs the fructifying Romance element. It is simply that the sensuous nature of the French makes them that much more gifted at painting; the Germans lack any color-sense and left to herself Germany would produce the type of painting represented by the Dresden school, which I despise. Of couse I said something of the sort to myself before I signed [ed. the petition], but at the time I was so angry about the latest presentations from Paris that I just went ahead and put down my name. I ought rather have told myself that the whole Matisse craze will sooner or later come to an end; the thing to do is simply to wait patiently.
     While I was standing there and thinking about these matters, I became aware of a conversation between a museum attendant and a young woman painter who was doing copying. I suddenly realized that they were talking about me, and the museum attendant was praising my work to the sky. But he had no backbone, for when the painter took issue with him, he became more and more timid, and finally said, 'Yes, that's so, of course; women ought to stick to their households.'"