COPENHAGEN.- A group of mothers putting their arms around each other to protect their frightened children. Death cracking his whip over the starving people. Rebel peasants rushing to do battle. A grieving woman cradling her dead child in her arms. A hand raised to the sky in protest.

The German artist Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) is known for her confrontational and harrowing subject matter. She translates social inequality, war and oppression into narratives of universal relevance, even as her deliberately unpolished works depict the living conditions in Germany at the time, calling for both resistance and compassion.

As of 7 November 2024, Kollwitz’s work can be explored in her first-ever solo show at a Danish museum when SMK – Statens Museum for Kunst opens the exhibition Käthe Kollwitz – Mensch. Presenting the full breadth of Kollwitz’s artistic endeavours, the exhibition features prints, drawings and sculptures alike. The display, comprising some 130 works, offers nuanced insight into the artist’s humanitarian commitment and the social, political and historical foundations from which her art springs.

Bearing witness to human suffering

Käthe Kollwitz was active as an artist at a time when Germany saw major changes. From the 1890s to the early 1940s, the country underwent the violent upheavals of industrialisation, which brought about hardships such as housing shortages, harsh working conditions and unemployment. The nation also saw two traumatising world wars.

With her art, Kollwitz gave a voice to those who suffered most from these circumstances. She saw herself as a critical observer of her own times, and in a diary entry from 5 January 1920 she wrote: ‘I felt that I have no right to withdraw from the responsibility of being an advocate. It is my duty to voice the sufferings of men, so never-ending and mountain-high. This is my task, but it is not at all easy to fulfill.’

Kollwitz saw the era’s rife inequality, hunger and oppression at first hand. For most of her life she lived in the poor working-class district of Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin, and through her husband, who was a doctor to the poor, she met the women of the working class. Women in particular are often the main characters in Kollwitz’s works, and in stark contrast to the many passive female figures typically found in art around the dawn of the twentieth century, Kollwitz portrayed her women as proud, strong and courageous.

Political commitment and pacifism

In her early works, Kollwitz typically strove to prompt political commitment and action by drawing on historical events. One example is her breakthrough series of prints A Weavers’ Revolt (1893–97). The cycle refers to a revolt in 1844 where harsh working conditions prompted German weavers to attack the factories. A Weavers’ Revolt was exhibited at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung (Great Berlin Art Exhibition) in 1898, where Kollwitz was nominated for a gold medal. However, the German Emperor, Wilhelm II, vetoed her receiving the medal – presumably due to the work’s political content.

After the First World War, Kollwitz increasingly pursued a pacifist course. She lost her youngest son, Peter, near the outset of the war, and she took her own painful experience as the starting point for depicting the horrors of war, focusing on the universal human experiences of grief, separation, death and love.

Humanitarian organisations, solidly conservative magazines and left-wing publishers alike all embraced Kollwitz’s art, commissioning her to create campaigns that would have public impact. Several of the resulting works are shown at the exhibition – including the iconic poster Nie wieder Krieg (Never Again War).

To Kollwitz, the artistic and social aspects of her works were always closely interwoven. At a time when many artists idealised art as entirely independent, free and unfettered, she was adamant that her works served a purpose. She insisted on art’s ability to bring about change.

The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue published by SMK. Through a series of essays by Katharina Koselleck, Stense Andrea Lind Valdan, Birgitte Anderberg, Knud Romer and Karin Michaëlis, as well as an interview with printmaker Niels Borch Jensen, the catalogue introduces Kollwitz’s life and art. The book also offers new historical and present-day angles on her experimental graphic works and their groundbreaking statements about women, class society and war trauma, exploring a world where light and darkness, sorrow and hope coexist.

Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was born in Königsberg in East Prussia and studied painting at two German Academies for Women Artists – first in Berlin, then in Munich. She married Karl Kollwitz, a doctor working with the poor, and had two sons. She lost her youngest son during the First World War, where he volunteered to join the German army and was killed in battle. In 1919, she was the first woman ever to become a full member of the Prussian Art Academy and was made a professor. Later, the Nazi regime forced her to resign from her position, and in 1936 she was banned from exhibiting. However, she continued her practice as a graphic artist, draughtswoman and sculptor until her death, which came a few weeks before the end of the Second World War in 1945. In present-day Germany she ranks among the most famous figures of art and culture and has several squares and streets named after her. In recent years, her work has been shown at major exhibitions at leading venues such as MoMA in New York and the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. Käthe Kollwitz – Mensch is the first solo show with Kollwitz ever presented at a Danish museum.