Kathe Kollwitz is regarded as one of the most important German artists of the twentieth century. With the use of mainly lithography and sculpture, Kathe Kollwitz created a variety of powerful pieces of art that capture many of the hardships she and her home country went through in the nineteenth and twentieth century. In her compelling prints and sculptures Kathe Kollwitz mainly explored the themes of suffering and death, (www.artandculture.com) which appears to be a very close and personal subjects that she shared with the world. She was a very unique artist in her time. Being a female artist in that time was all together unique enough, but she also deviated from the artistic norm by doing most of her work in prints and drawing instead of paintings, and instead of using color she did her work in only black and white. (Getlein) Three things mainly influenced Kathe Kollwitz work: the hardships of the society she lived in, the hardships she went through in her personal life, and War. In all of these themes the presence of death, sickness, injustice, pain, and the struggles of women were found throughout.
Kathe Schmidt was born the daughter of a well to do mason in an East Prussian town called Konigsberg. Her parents were a very important influence on her strong socialist beliefs and her study of art. She began taking art lessons when she was fourteen and at the age of seventeen she attended the Berlin School of Art, and later began studying art in Munich. In 1891, Kathe Schmidt married Dr Karl Kollwitz, who was equally influential and encouraging of Kathe's career. The couple moved to Berlin, in one of the poorest sections of the city, and set up a joint doctor's office and artist's studio that they worked in for over fifty years. (www.mystudios.com).
Living in a working class section of Berlin, Kollwitz received a first hand view of the hardships suffered by the working class.
