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Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), Self-portrait, 1934, German. Sheet. 43.18 x 33.66 cm. Courtesy of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Calif (http://www.lacma.org); Los Angeles County Fund; photograph © 2004 Museum Associates/LACMA. Copyright © Käthe Kollwitz Estate/Artists Rights Society, New York, NY/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany.

Käthe Kollwitz (NEE SCHMIDT) (1867-1945), considered to be one of the greatest graphic artists of the first half of the 20th century, chose her themes from what she saw around her and daily lived: war, poverty, hunger, illness, violence, and death. Most often her subjects were women or mothers and children, but she neither romanticized nor sentimentalized them. Their likenesses were presented in mediums as humble as charcoal or pen and ink or in monumental, though stark, sculpture forms (JAMA cover, November 4, 1983). The true medium for Kollwitz, however, was the human flesh and its burden of suffering: . . . [Full Text of this Article]

M. Therese Southgate, MD