Curator, Starr Figura: Käthe Kollwitz was committed, ambitious, empathetic.
Writer, Sheila Heti: Her courage in looking at the pain of life.
Printmaker, Rob Swainston: She’s frank. . .
Podcaster, Tamar Avishai: Distilled. . .
Artist, Wolfgang Tillmans: Compassionate. . .
Therapist, Emily Price: And maybe matriarch but like in the most badass goddess kind of vibe.
Starr Figura: My name is Starr Figura. I'm a Curator of Drawings and Prints at The Museum of Modern Art.
Käthe Kollwitz was one of the great German artists of the 20th century. She was born in 1867 and she died in 1945, just before the end of the Second World War. In this self-portrait, she’s around 33 years old and she's just achieved her first success as a professional artist.
Kollwitz originally trained as a painter, but she turned to printmaking because it lent itself to social criticism. Prints are produced in multiple copies and that allowed Kollwitz to share her messages of social justice and compassion with a broad audience.
The exhibition is organized chronologically, but as you go through, you'll notice a number of themes that Kollwitz turned to again and again: motherhood and love, death and grief, but also resistance.