Thread: Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) is one of my favourite artists - as for her, art IS emotion. Throughout her life she depicted a series of astonishing self-portraits. She was a master of ink, charcoal, pencil, stone & bronze. Today is the anniversary of her birthday

Her first great series was The Weavers (1890s). Here is graphic art of such calibre that it is both deeply moving & powerfully disturbing. She truly enjoyed the Weavers’ struggle. Adolf Von Menzel praised the series as he could see her genius

As a young teenager the drawings of Kollwitz inspired me & helped me to develop. You can see some of my original drawings for sale in my Etsy Shop: http://etsy.com/ie/shop/robbohan

Kollwitz’s next series was The Peasant’s War (1902-8) which sees a further unleashing of her expressionist genius & the creation of some of the most powerful images in art!

In 1910 Kollwitz turned towards the subject that she would make her own, motherhood & loss, in Runover. The loss of her son in 1914 was the genesis of her moving sculpture The Grieving Parents. Each is an island of tortured grief

As a committed socialist & pacifist Kollwitz created a memorial sheet for Karl Liebknecht (1919). Soon after she was appointed professor of the Prussian Academy of Arts. She then produced the War Cycle (1922-23), pictured are The Widow & The Parents

Kollwitz created her three most famous posters - Germany’s Children Starving (1924), Bread (1924) & Never Again War (1924) at a time when Germany was collapsing after the Great War. It was a time of crisis & children were the great artist’s concern

The Far Right forced Kollwitz to resign her professorship & she started on her Death Cycle including The Call of Death (self-portrait), Young Girl in the Lap of Death & Death Seizing a Woman (1934). It’s hard not to see these as symbolic of the collapse of German civilisation

Woman with Dead Child (1903) is so powerful in its animal grief & contrasts with the beautiful Child’s Head on It’s Mother’s Arms (1900) & the amazing Death, Woman & Child

The choice to have Käthe Kollwitz’s Mother with Dead Son as the Central Memorial of the FR Germany for the Victims of War & Dictatorship was perfect. Kollwitz’s life & art are a testament to the idiocy of totalitarianism & the futility of war.

Finally should anyone ever say there is no female artist as good as Rembrandt, Goya or Van Gogh - tell them about Käthe Kollwitz. That she’s not more widely known is, well, stupid!

Kollwitz is rightly renowned for her self-portraits. They are astonishing in their charisma. The artist is now being recognised for her importance, more widely. For me she’s a part of my understanding of art.

Here’s some more of my work. You can see some of my original drawings for sale in my Etsy Shop:
http://etsy.com/ie/shop/robbohan