Acquisition Information
Arrangement
Biographical / Historical Note: Dr. Richard A. Simms
Access
Publication Rights
Processing History
Preferred Citation
Scope and Contents
Biographical / Historical Note: Käthe Kollwitz
Digitized Materials
Contributing Institution: Special Collections
Title: Dr. Richard A. Simms collection of prints and drawings by Käthe Kollwitz and other artists
Creator: Simms, Richard A., Dr.
Creator: Kollwitz, Käthe, 1867-1945
Creator: Becke, Alexander von der, 1902-1959
Creator: Felsing, Otto, 1854-
Creator: Felsing, Wilhelm
Creator: Richter, Emil
Creator: H. Meysel Nachfol.
Creator: Chodowiecki, Daniel, 1726-1801
Creator: Stauffer, Karl, 1857-1891
Creator: Detaille, Edouard, 1848-1912
Creator: Feininger, Lyonel, 1871-1956
Creator: Repin, Ilʹi︠a︡ Efimovich, 1844-1930
Creator: Greiner, Otto, 1869-1916
Creator: Barlach, Ernst, 1870-1938
Creator: Gramatté, Walter, 1897-1929
Creator: Grosz, George, 1893-1959
Creator: Halm, Peter, 1854-1923
Creator: Kampf, Arthur, 1864-1950
Creator: Klinger, Max, 1857-1920
Creator: Lechter, Melchior, 1865-1937
Creator: Liphart, Ernst Friedrich, Baron von, 1847-1932
Creator: Loth, Wilhelm, 1920-1993
Creator: Meidner, Ludwig, 1884-1966
Creator: Morgner, Wilhelm, 1891-1917
Creator: Pechstein, Max, 1881-1955
Creator: Pankok, Bernhard, 1872-1943
Creator: Pascin, Jules, 1885-1930
Creator: Schlichter, Rudolf, 1890-1955
Creator: Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl, 1884-1976
Creator: Skarbina, Franz, 1849-1910
Creator: Slevogt, Max, 1868-1932
Creator: Steinlen, Théophile Alexandre, 1859-1923
Creator: Stuck, Franz von, 1863-1928
Creator: Thoma, Hans, 1839-1924
Creator: Zille, Heinrich, 1858-1929
Creator: Corinth, Lovis, 1858-1925
Creator: Felixmüller, Conrad, 1897-1977
Creator: Nolde, Emil, 1867-1956
Creator: Welti, Albert, 1862-1912
Creator: Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 1864-1901
Identifier/Call Number: 2016.PR.34
Physical Description: 237.61 Linear Feet(92 boxes, 6 flat file folders)
Date (inclusive): 1770s-2007, undated
Abstract: Assembled over a period of forty years, the collection comprises approximately 560 works on paper by Käthe Kollwitz and other
predominantly German and other European artists from the late 19th and the early 20th century, whose work exemplifies the
artistic directions of the period, such as realism or naturalism, impressionism, symbolism, and expressionism. Several of
the artists represented were like Käthe Kollwitz members of the modernist movement Berlin Secession, including Ernst Barlach,
Max Klinger, Lovis Corinth, Emil Nolde, or Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Most extensively represented are Lovis Corinth, Otto Greiner,
Max Klinger, Wilhelm Leibl, Ludwig Meidner, Max Pechstein, Franz Skarbina, Max Slevogt, and Karl Stauffer-Bern. Present are
works by Emma Bormann, Lyonel Feininger, Walter Grammatté, George Grosz, Peter Halm, Karl Jakob Hirsch, Arthur Kampf, Melchior
Lechter, Wilhelm Leibl, Friedrich von Liphart, Hans Meid, Wilhelm Morgner, Rolf Nesch, Emil Orlik, Bernhard Pankok, Jules
Pascin, Ilya Repin, Christian Rohlfs, Rudolf Schlichter, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, Franz von Stuck, Hans Thoma, Henri
de Toulouse-Lautrec, Albert Welti, and Heinrich Zille. Also included are works by artists from the late 18th and pre-modernist
19th century, including Daniel Chodowiecki, Jean-Baptiste Édouard Detaille, Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the Elder, and Alfred Rethel.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language of Material: Collection material is in German
Acquisition Information
Partial Gift of Dr. Richard A. Simms.
The drawing
The People [
Das Volk] by Käthe Kollwitz (Nagel/Timm 977) and the drawing
Girl with a Child in Her Arm [
Mädchen mit Kind auf dem Arm] (Nagel/Timm 700) are the gift of Dr. Richard A. Simms in honor of Hildegard Bachert.The print
Praying Young Woman [
Betendes Mädchen] by Käthe Kollwitz (Knesebeck 14.Ib) is the gift of Dr. Richard A. Simms in honor of Elizabeth Perlinger.The watercolor
Self-Portrait in Barcelona by Walter Gramatté is a gift of Dr. Richard A. Simms and was received as an addition to the collection.The drawings
Street at Night II and
Self-Portrait with Tongue Sticking Out by Ludwig Meidner are a gift of Dr. Richard A. Simms and were received as an addition to the collection.The watercolor
Blooming Cactuses [
Blühende Kakteen] by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff is a gift of Dr. Richard A. Simms in honor of Louis Marchesano and was received as an addition
to the collection.The sheet with drawings by Kollwitz
Sketches of Figures from Caveau des Innocents [
Figurenstudien aus Caveau des Innocents] are a gift of Dr. Richard A. Simms.The woodcut by Otto Dix
Lovers [
Liebespaar] is a gift of Dr. Richard A. Simms.
The drawing
Hamburg Tavern (
Hamburger Kneipe) by Käthe Kollwitz (Nagel/Timm 184) is a gift of Dr. Richard A. Simms and was received as an addition to the collection.
Arrangement
Organized in two series: Series I. Käthe Kollwitz, 1888-1993, undated; Series II. Other artists, 1770s-2007, undated
Biographical / Historical Note: Dr. Richard A. Simms
Dr. Richard A. Simms is a renowned California-based art collector of prints and drawings by Käthe Kollwitz and other 19th
and 20th-century German artists. The online art newspaper
ArtDaily reported in 2010: "Dr. Richard A. Simms is an internationally recognized collector of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
German prints and drawings. At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, he was chair of the Prints and Drawings Council and then
a member of the Board of Trustees for twelve years. He now serves as the inaugural chair of the Collections Council of the
Getty Research Institute." Dr. Simms acquired his art collection in Europe and the United States between 1973 and 2014, focusing
predominantly on individual prints and drawings as well as portfolios of prints and books illustrated with original graphics
by German artists from the mid-19th century until the end of World War II. His collecting interests extended also to French
artists from the 18th and 19th centuries; the Belgian artist James Ensor; and at the beginning of his collecting, early graphic
works by Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya, and Callot. Over the years, prints and drawings by Käthe Kollwitz became Dr. Simms's principal
passion, which he followed not only through intense study and acquisition of the often multiple states and impressions of
her works, but also by building a comprehensive private library of publications about Kollwitz and other artists of her time.
A decisive moment in the building of the Kollwitz collection came in 1978 with an acquisition from the artist's estate, which
had been inherited by her grandchildren. At once, Dr. Simms acquired 121 prints, including many Kollwitz herself advised her
family not to sell because of their rarity. This acquisition included early and unique impressions from her print series
Ein Weberaufstand (
Weaver's Revolt),
Bauernkrieg (
Peasants' War),
Krieg (
War), and
Tod (
Death); individual sheets such as self-portraits; and preparatory impressions for edition prints. From the same source, Dr. Simms
also acquired a large drawing related to the monumental print
Gedenkblatt für Karl Liebknecht (
In Memoriam Karl Liebknecht). In the 1980s, Dr. Simms continued to acquire important prints and significant drawings by Kollwitz at auction, such as
the early study for Kollwitz's narrative print
Szene aus Germinal (
Scene from Germinal) (1893). In the 1990s and 2000s, Dr. Simms continued to build the collection by adding rare proofs and state impressions,
including rare working proofs for the series
Peasants' War. In 1992, about fifteen years after he began collecting Kollwitz, expert in German Expressionist art, Hildegard Bachert pointed
out, that Dr. Simms is "undoubtedly the most important Kollwitz collector in America today" and a collector who has a "… wide-ranging
feeling for humanistically oriented graphic art." The quotation comes from the catalogue for the first survey exhibition devoted
to Kollwitz in the United States. It was organized by the National Gallery of Art, which drew upon its own collection and
works borrowed from more than twenty private collectors and museums in United States and Europe, including Dr. Simms. With
over a hundred works on paper, the National Gallery of Art exhibition had a profound effect on Dr. Simms as it inspired him
to explore Kollwitz's working process by seeking to acquire multiple states, and printing and working proofs of her works
in order to provide comparative material that can enable scholars to explore how Kollwitz creates and changes the meaning
of her artistic vision through the technical processes of printmaking.
Dr. Richard A. Simms also sought to acquire prints and drawings by other German artists from Kollwitz's time and artistic
orbit, such as Max Klinger, Emil Nolde, Otto Greiner, Ludwig Meidner, and George Grosz; building a comprehensive and important
resource for the study of German art from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
The above note is informed by the following sources:
Curatorial notes by Louis Marchesano, Curator of Prints and Drawings, Getty Research Institute.
Artdaily online article "The Getty Announces Gift by Dr. Richard A. Simms in Memory of James N. Wood";
Artdaily website, viewed March 29, 2018.
Bachert, Hildegard. "Collecting the Art of Käthe Kollwitz"; in: Prelinger, Elizabet.
Käthe Kollwitz. Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1992.
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers. Series I.A. Series I.B., Series II.A. and Series II.B. are restricted. Contact the
repository for information regarding access.
Publication Rights
Processing History
The collection was processed by Christina Aube, Lisa Forman, Lauren Graber, Natascha Kirchner, Allison Ransom, Vladimira Stefura,
and Isabella Zuralski-Yeager. Isabella Zuralski-Yeager wrote the finding aid.
Preferred Citation
Dr. Richard A. Simms collection of prints and drawings by Käthe Kollwitz and other artists, 1770s-2007, undated, The Getty
Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2016.PR.34
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2016pr34
Scope and Contents
Assembled over a period of forty years, the collection comprises approximately 560 works on paper by Käthe Kollwitz and other
predominantly German artists from the late 19th and the early 20th century, whose work exemplifies the artistic directions
of the period, such as realism or naturalism, impressionism, symbolism, and expressionism. Also present are published portfolios
of prints, a small collection of letters sent by the artists and others, a few vintage photographs, and various printed illustrated
matter. A total of approximately 720 items.
Series I.includes a total of approximately 340 items. The main portion constitute prints and drawings by Käthe Kollwitz acquired
by Dr. Simms in Europe and the United States between 1973 and 2014. Present are approximately 240 graphic works in intaglio,
woodcut and lithography; and approximately fifty drawings; a total of approximately 290 works on paper. Dating from 1891 to
1941, the prints represent the entire spectrum of Kollwitz's graphic work. As several proof impressions and states of a print
are frequently present, the collection provides a unique opportunity to explore the progression of Kollwitz's artistic vision
from state to state through the analysis of her often innovative and experimental application of printing tools and techniques,
and testifies to the collector's particular interest in Kollwitz's workshop and her understanding of the printing process.
The drawings by Käthe Kollwitz date from 1888 to 1928, with the bulk dating from the late 1890s and the early 1900s and from
1919 and the early 1920s. Numerous drawings are preparatory studies for prints also present in the collection. Other materials
in the series are four print portfolios by Kollwitz, including the so-called Richter Mappe from 1920; postwar exhibition posters,
including several from California; vintage portrait photographs of Kollwitz; and letters sent by Kollwitz.
Series II. includes approximately 380 items: 130 drawings, 140 prints, 35 print portfolios, various printed matter, and letters
sent. The majority of the prints and drawings in this series have not been published before and are not part of existing catalogues
raisonné. Several of the artists represented were like Käthe Kollwitz members of the modernist movement Berlin Secession,
including Ernst Barlach, Max Klinger, Lovis Corinth, Emil Nolde, or Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Most extensively represented are
Lovis Corinth, Otto Greiner, Max Klinger, Wilhelm Leibl, Ludwig Meidner, Max Pechstein, Franz Skarbina, Max Slevogt, and Karl
Stauffer-Bern. Also present are several or single works by Emma Bormann, Lyonel Feininger, Walter Grammatté, George Grosz,
Peter Halm, Karl Jakob Hirsch, Arthur Kampf, Melchior Lechter, Wilhelm Leibl, Friedrich von Liphart, Hans Meid, Wilhelm Morgner,
Rolf Nesch, Emil Orlik, Bernhard Pankok, Jules Pascin, Ilya Repin, Christian Rohlfs, Rudolf Schlichter, Théophile Alexandre
Steinlen, Franz von Stuck, Hans Thoma, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Albert Welti, and Heinrich Zille. Also included are works
by artists from the late 18th and pre-modernist 19th century, including Daniel Chodowiecki, Jean-Baptiste Édouard Detaille,
Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the Elder, and Alfred Rethel. Three drawings are without established attribution.
Added at the end of Series II. are five works on paper by non-European artists: Eduardo Kingman, Leopoldo Méndez, Sarah Sears,
Louis Muhlstock, and Merian D. Williams. An unsigned lithograph attributed to Gerhart Kraag (1909-1971) is filed with this
group until the attribution is confirmed.
Biographical / Historical Note: Käthe Kollwitz
Käthe Kollwitz was born on July 8, 1867 in Königsberg, Prussia, the fifth child of Karl and Katherina Schmidt. Her father
was a Social Democrat with strong socialist opinions opposing Otto von Bismarck's authoritarian government. Her mother was
the daughter of Julius Rupp, a Lutheran pastor who founded a congregation independent from state or church control, that advocated
freedom of conscience for its members. Kollwitz's upbringing was influenced by her family's liberal political, social, and
religious views. Encouraged by her father, Kollwitz began taking lessons in drawing as a teenager in Königsberg. In 1886,
she enrolled in a private art school for women in Berlin, where she took lessons from Karl Stauffer-Bern, who introduced her
to the etchings of Max Klinger. In 1888, at the age of twenty-one, she became engaged to Karl Kollwitz, a medical student
in Königsberg and a member of the Social Democrats. Despite her engagement, between 1888 and 1890 Kollwitz lived alone in
Munich and studied at the Damenakademie München, an art school for women, as in Germany art academies did not accept female
students until after World War I. In Munich she witnessed the breakthrough of naturalistic painting en plein air and took
an interest in literature and issues related to womens' rights. She produced drawings and prints inspired by Émil Zola's novel
Germinal. In 1891, Karl and Käthe married and settled in a working class neighborhood in Berlin, where Karl opened a medical practice
as one of the first physicians implementing a new social and medical insurance for workers, which was the first European system
of health insurance, raised from mandatory fees shared by the workers, the employers, and the state. They had two sons, Hans,
born in 1892; and Peter, born in 1896. In her artistic work Kollwitz focused initially on drawing and graphics. She engaged
in exploring various printing techniques, including etching, drypoint, aquatint, soft ground, woodcut and lithography; often
experimenting by mixing various techniques and using unconventional tools, such as sand paper or needle bundles. In later
years, she also turned to sculpture, while still producing graphic works. Inspired by Gerhard Hauptmann's naturalistic drama
Die Weber (
The Weavers) based on the revolt of Silesian weavers in 1844 and first performed in Berlin in 1893, Kollwitz produced a series of etchings
and lithographs based on the weavers theme. The series was exhibited publicly in 1898 to wide acclaim, but when Adolf Menzel
nominated her work for the gold medal at the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung in Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm II withheld his approval.
An illustrated edition of Wilhelm Zimmermann's
Allgemeine Geschichte des grossen Bauernkrieges (
General History of the Great Peasants' War), written between 1841 and 1843, is believed to be the source of Kollwitz's second major series of prints, the
Bauernkrieg (
Peasants' War). From 1901 to 1908 Kollwitz produced many preliminary drawings and discarded impressions in etching, aquatint, and soft
ground for it, while relentlessly perfecting her technical skills and artistic expression. Completed in 1908, the series was
printed for mass circulation by the publishing house Kunstsalon Emil Richter in Dresden.
In 1903, she produced in several states the etching
Frau mit totem Kind (
Woman with Dead Child), whose harrowing subject, together with the sculptural quality of her treatment of the motif, marked the most innovative
time in her career as a graphic artist.
While working on the
Peasants' War, Kollwitz visited Paris twice. In 1901 she met Théophile Alexandre Steinlen and admired his color etchings; the art dealer
and collector Otto Ackermann introduced her to the art galleries in Paris, and Kollwitz acquired a pastel by Picasso. During
a study trip to Paris in 1904, she enrolled in sculpting classes at the Académie Julian and visited the studio of August Rodin.
Between 1901 and 1904 most of her graphic works were in color.
In November 1901, as a member of the Berliner Secession, she showed her color combination print
Frau mit Orange (
Woman with Orange), produced in various intaglio techniques and in lithography, and the journal
Kunst für Alle praised her technical innovations.
In 1907, her etching
Losbruch (
Outbreak), produced between 1902 and 1903, was awarded the Villa Romana Prize – founded by Max Klinger – giving her the opportunity
for an extended stay in a studio in Florence. She embarked on a hiking tour from Florence to Rome.
From 1908 to 1910, Kollwitz worked as a freelancer for the satirical magazine
Simplicissimus. In 1912, she was elected to the board of the Berliner Secession and, after the split in the Berliner Secession in 1913,
she became member of the board of the Freie Secession and co-founder and chairwoman of the Frauenkunstverband (Association
of Female Artists). The early 1910s also marked the beginning of her sculptural work.
In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, Kollwitz lost her son Peter in a battle in Belgium in the first days of the war.
Grieving, Kollwitz began to make drawings for a monument to her son and his fallen comrades. The sculpture
Die trauernden Eltern (
The Greaving Parents) was completed in 1932 and placed in a war cemetery in Belgium.
From the early 1910s onward Kollwitz's work increasingly reflected social and political commitment. Her works focused on
themes of social injustice and the hardships of the living conditions of the poor working class in pre- and post-WWI Germany,
predominantly among women and children. The themes of her works are poverty, hunger, motherhood, illness, death, and bereavement.
Between 1918 and 1922, at the time of enormous economic depression in Germany, she produced a series of woodcuts called
Krieg (
War) in response to the tragedies endured by those left behind – mothers, widows, and children. After the assassination of the
German radical and communist revolutionary Karl Liebknecht in 1919, Kollwitz produced etchings and lithographs about Liebknecht's
death, focusing on the theme of mourning. She produced several commercially-distributed socially and politically engaged posters,
including the poster
Helft Russland (
Help Russia), from 1921, a contribution to overcoming the catastrophic drought in the Volga area.
Throughout her career, Kollwitz made numerous self-portraits, from a vibrant young woman in Munich until her portrait in
profile at old age, from 1938.
As a living artist Kollwitz gained remarkable recognition. In 1917, on her 50th birthday, numerous exhibitions were staged
in Germany, with the Berlin Print Room showing the entire collection of her graphic works. The Paul Cassirer Gallery in Berlin
exhibited a large number of drawings, and the show travelled to Königsberg, Dresden, Hamburg, and Mannheim. In 1920, Kollwitz
became the first woman elected to the prestigious Prussian Academy of Art. She participated in print exhibitions of the academy
until 1934. At her own request, she didn't start teaching until 1928.
Under National Socialism Kollwitz was not declared "degenerate," but she was removed from her post at the academy and banned
from exhibiting. Her works were confiscated from public collections. The art dealers entrusted with sales of her works were
Bernard A. Böhmer, Karl Buchholz, and Hildebrandt Gurlitt. She continued to draw and produce prints, and made several small-scale
sculptures, and managed to show a selection of her works in her studio in the Klostergasse, in Berlin. Between 1934 and 1937
she completed her last series
Tod (
Death), an eight-piece work on the theme of death. In 1934, an interview with Kollwitz was published in a Russian newspaper in
Moscow. The Gestapo threatened her with deportation in the case of a recurrence. Meanwhile, in the United States, Kollwitz'
fame continued to grow. The Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, organized a Kollwitz exhibition in 1933. In 1934, Harvard
University presented prints by the artist. There was a show at the Hudson Gallery in New York in 1937. The College Art Association
organized touring exhibitions of Kollwitz's work in 1934-1935. Zeitlins Bookshop and Gallery in Los Angeles and the Fine Arts
Gallery in San Diego staged exhibitions in 1937, followed by shows in the early 1940s organized by the American Federation
of Arts, the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum in New York. In short, the United States become a major market for
her works. The American collector Lessing J. Rosenwald acquired 115 prints and 27 drawings by Kollwitz, and later donated
the entire collection to the National Gallery in Washington.
Karl Kollwitz died on 19 July 1940. In 1941, Kollwitz produced in limited edition the print
Saatfrüchte sollen nicht vermahlen werden (
Seeds for Sowing Should Not Be Milled), considered her legacy. Her eldest grandson Peter died in war in Russia in 1942. In 1943, Kollwitz's studio in Berlin was
bombed and many drawings, prints and documents were destroyed. In 1944 she evacuated to Moritzburg near Dresden. Just weeks
before the war ends, Käthe Kollwitz died on April 22, 1945.
Throughout her career, Kollwitz graphic works were widely published. The two series
The Weavers and
Peasants' War established her reputation as an artist of considerable artistry and technical competence. The publisher Verlag Emil Richter
in Dresden gained exclusive publication rights, and from 1910 to 1930 extensively published and distributed her complete graphic
works. Max Lehrs, director of the Dresden Print Room, both acquired her work for the collection and published the first catalog
of her prints in 1902, which Johannes Sievers augmented in 1913. In 1927, the Richter publishing house issued an incomplete
list of her prints made from 1913 to 1927, compiled by A. Wagner. In the early 1930s, the Swiss art historian and art dealer,
August Klipstein, began to write a new comprehensive catalogue raisonné of Kollwitz's prints in consultation with the publisher
and collector Alexander von der Becke, who after the bankruptcy of Emil Richter in 1931 became Kollwitz's publisher. Klipstein
died in 1951, before completing his work, but in 1955 the catalogue raisonné was published by Klipstein's successor, E. W.
Kornfeld, with the assistance of Klipstein's widow, Frieda Klipstein, and the collector Helmut Goedeckemeyer. In 2002, the
German art historian Alexandra von dem Knesebeck published her two-volume comprehensive catalogue raisonné of graphics by
Kollwitz. The German painter and communist activist, Otto Nagel, compiled the first comprehensive catalogue raisonné of Kollwitz's
drawings. After Nagel's death in 1967, his work was continued by the art historian Werner Timm, in collaborative effort with
Nagel's daughter, Sibylle Schallenberg-Nagel, and Kollwitz's son, Hans Kollwitz. The catalogue raisonné of Kollwitz's drawings
was first published in 1972 by the Galerie St. Etienne in New York.
After the war, Kollwitz's work received very different receptions on both sides of the Berlin Wall and outside of Germany.
Today, her works continue to spark debates among artists and art critics. The award-winning German art critic, Kito Nedo,
summarized the postwar reception of Kollwitz in an essay posted at
artnet News website in 2017. In Nedo's words, "... in East Germany, the artist [Kollwitz] … was venerated as a national hero and thus
used for political ends—undeterred by regular references in the West to her diaries, in which she argues for the political
independence of art." By the mid-1950s, the Western art world largely lost interest in Kollwitz. In 1981, the American art
theorist, Lucy Lippard, argued that this lack of interest resulted from the postwar notion of the artist as a "lofty genius"
or an "outsider" while Kollwitz's socially and politically engaged themes focused on matters of real life. In 1967, the critic
Gottfried Sello wrote in the West-German weekly
Die Zeit that "… in spite of her progressive ideas, Kollwitz is an arch-conservative artist" (cited by Nedo). According to Nedo, the
contemporary historiography and reception of Kollwitz prefers a less-politicized view. This trend can be observed in the recent
biography of Kollwitz by Yvonne Schymura, who views the artist as "free of political and personal engagements" (cited by Nedo).
Exhibitions in Germany held in 2017 on the artist's 150th birth anniversary focused on self-portraits (Käthe Kollwitz Museum
Cologne) and on her circle of friends (Käthe Kollwitz Museum Berlin); another exhibition in Berlin at Galerie Parterre explored
her links to the city of Berlin. In the United States, the Metropolitan Museum curator, Jennifer Farrell, included Kollwitz's
work in the exhibition
World War I and the Visual Arts as representative of the historical period. The British Museum in London and the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham focused on Kollwitz's
creativity in the exhibition
Portrait of the Artist: Käthe Kollwitz. Contemporary German artists, such as Katharina Sieverding or Martin Kippenberger, have made references to the notions of
empathy in Kollwitz's works. For the New York City-based feminist artists' group, Guerrilla Girls, Kollwitz is an inspiring
role model. Finally, in his essay, Nedo argued that the world has "never really forgotten" about Kollwitz and her continued
presence should be attributed to the universal humanist visual language that characterizes her work.
The above note is informed by the following sources:
Undated manuscript of Kollwitz biography compiled by the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Cologne, held at the Getty Research Institute.
Bachert, Hildegard. "Collecting the Art of Käthe Kollwitz"; in: Prelinger, Elizabet.
Käthe Kollwitz. Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1992.
Knesebeck, Alexandra von dem.
Käthe Kollwitz: Verzeichnis der Graphik. Bern, Verlag Kornfeld, 2002.
Lippard, Lucy R.
Käthe Kollwitz, Graphics, Posters, Drawings. London, Writers and Readers, 1981.
Nedo, Kito. "Why Käthe Kollwitz, an Icon of German Modern Art, Is Still So Controversial on Her 150th Anniversary"; in:
artnet News website, posted July 18, 2017, viewed March 29, 2018.
Digitized Materials
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Lithographs -- Germany -- 20th century
Drawings (visual works) -- Germany -- 20th century
Etchings (prints) -- Germany -- 20th century
Prints (visual works) -- Germany -- 20th century
Drawings (visual works) -- Germany -- 19th century
Lithographs -- Germany -- 19th century
Etchings (prints) -- Germany -- 19th century
Prints (visual works) -- Germany -- 19th century
Art, German -- 20th century
Art, German--19th century
Pen and ink drawings -- Germany -- 19th century
Drypoints (prints) -- Germany -- 19th century
Drypoints (prints) -- Germany -- 20th century
Aquatints (prints) -- Germany -- 19th century
Aquatints (prints) -- Germany -- 20th century
Soft-ground etchings (visual works) -- Germany -- 20th century
Woodcuts (prints) -- Germany -- 20th century
Photolithographs -- Germany -- 20th century
Charcoal drawings -- Germany -- 20th century
Pastels (visual works) -- Germany -- 20th century
Pencil drawings -- Germany -- 20th century
Chalk drawings -- Germany -- 20th century
Gouaches (paintings) -- Germany -- 20th century
Pen and ink drawings -- Germany -- 20th century
Soft-ground etchings (visual works) -- Germany -- 19th century
Transfer lithographs -- Germany -- 20th century
Chalk drawings -- Germany -- 18th century
Drawings (visual works) -- Germany -- 18th century
Watercolors (paintings) -- France -- 19th century
Watercolors (paintings) -- United States -- 20th century
Watercolors (paintings) -- Germany -- 20th century
Pen and wash drawings -- Germany -- 19th century
Pencil drawings -- Germany -- 19th century
Watercolors (paintings) -- Germany -- 19th century
Charcoal drawings -- Germany -- 19th century
Chalk drawings -- Germany -- 19th century
Sketchbooks -- Germany -- 19th century
Portraits -- Germany -- 19th century
Portraits -- France -- 19th century
Drawings (visual works) -- Russia -- 19th century
Pencil drawings -- Russia -- 19th century
Charcoal drawings -- France -- 19th century
Drawings (visual works) -- France -- 19th century
Gouaches (paintings) -- France -- 19th centuray
Pastels (visual works) -- France -- 19th century
Linocuts (prints) -- Austria -- 20th century
Prints (visual works) -- Austria -- 20th century
Nudes (representations)
Chalk lithographs -- Germany -- 19th century
Portraits -- Germany -- 20th century
Mezzotints (prints) -- Germany -- 19th century
Landscapes (representations) -- Germany -- 19th century
Landscapes (representations) -- Germany -- 20th century
Embossed prints -- Germany -- 20th century
Collagraphs (prints) -- Norway -- 20th century
Color lithographs -- Germany -- 20th century
Chalk lithographs -- Germany -- 20th century
Self-portraits -- Germany -- 20th century
Color woodcuts (prints) -- Germany -- 20th century
Wood engravings (prints) -- Germany -- 19th century
Aquatints (prints) -- France -- 19th century
Drypoints (prints) -- France -- 19th century
Etchings (prints) -- France -- 19th century
Prints (visual works) -- France -- 19th century
Lithographs -- France -- 19th century
Aquatints (prints) -- Switzerland -- 19th century
Etchings (prints) -- Switzerland -- 19th century
Prints (visual works) -- Switzerland -- 19th century
Gouaches (paintings) -- Ecuador -- 20th century
Etchings (prints) -- Mexico -- 20th century
Prints (visual works) -- Mexico -- 20th century
Photolithographs -- Canada -- 20th century
Prints (visual works) -- Canada -- 20th century
Prints (visual works) -- United States -- 20th century
Woodcuts (prints) -- United States -- 20th century
Prints (visual works)
Screen prints
Gouaches (paintings) -- Germany -- 19th century
Prints (visual works) -- Norway -- 20th century
Self-portraits -- Germany -- 19th century
Kollwitz, Käthe, 1867-1945
Liebknecht, Karl Paul August Friedrich, 1871-1919
Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre, 1824-1898