Kathe Kollwitz, one of whose works is shown on the cover of this issue of BLAST, was an artist of the oppressed.
Barn on July 8, 1867 in Konigsberg, East Prussia, Kathe grew up in an atmosphere that was both religious as well as revolutionary. Her grandfather, though a devout Christian, was expelled from the church because of his rationalistic views.
Kathe’s talent for art was encouraged by her family and at 18 she went to Berlin to undergo a year’s training at the art school there,
Three years later, she left for Munich, where she came under the influence of progressive writers like Emile Zola and Henrik Ibsen. The lectures and writings of the great socialist leader, August Bebel also made a deep impression on her and awakened in her an interest in Marxism and women’s problems.
A few years later she married Karl Kollwitz, a doctor, and settled down in Berlin, in a working-class locality. Kollwitz had a deep sympathy for the poor and the suffering and his dispensary was open to anyone who could pay a small weekly subscription.
The suffering and poverty she saw around her inspired Kathe to continue her artistic work. She was more attracted to etching (i. e., drawing on metal plates with the help of a sharp instrument and acid) than to painting-capturing the most harsh as well as subtle emotions with bold and light strokes. Once she had mastered the technique of etching. Kathe began to work on themes dealing with social oppression.
One of the most famous works during this period is the series entitled “The Weavers” which dramatises the revolt of the Silesian (a region in Germany) weavers, who earned a miserable living. It starts with anger and revolt but ends in tragedy. It is a landmark in the history of proletarian art.
Another great series she painted is “The Peasant War”. Here the two major oppressed classes, the peasants and the proletariat, are shown breaking their chains and rising in rebellion against their oppressors.
The dominant figure in many of Kathe’s paintings is the woman or the child. In her works Kathe portrays the sorrow of a mother who sees her children starve, her sons and husband killed in war and her daughters and herself raped and attacked: but who also has courage to fight against these atrocities. Unlike many other artists, Kathe shows the beauty in the Woman through her conviction and courage, and not through her appearance.
The horror of the First Imperialist War (World War 1) can be seen in many of the works she did during that period such as ‘Waiting’. ‘The Mother’ and ‘Killed In Action’. For Kathe it was also an expression of a personal tragedy, for her 18-year-old son had been killed in action in that war in 1914.
In 1919 she was elected professor in the Berlin Academy of Art, the first woman to be thus honoured. She held the post until the Nazis came to power in Germany.
In the period between the two world wars, Kathe did many of her great works, It was the Germany of the oppressed and the exploited which we see in her works during this period. The old man who had no recourse left but death (‘The Last Resort’), the mother choking off her children’s cry (‘Bread!”), the starving children with empty bowls in their hands (‘Germany’s children are starving shown on the cover), the three works, ‘Unemployment. Hunger’ and ‘Infant Mortality are all powerful answers to the oppression of the Nazis.
In her Karl Liebknecht Memorial, dedicated to the great German revolutionary, Kathe Kollwitz challenged the fascists who murdered this leader of the working class. She also did several posters expre-ssing solidarity with the Russian people after the Revolution of 1917. It was this socialist commitment that was later to be used against her by the Nazis.
In 1933, the leader of the Nazis. Adolf Hitler, began his reign of repression, Kathe was expelled from the Academy. More and more restrictions were put on her movements but she refused to give in. She even refused offers from friends to leave Germany. because she wanted to face the oppression with revo lutionary courage.
In the next few years Kathe found herself increa singly isolated. Work was her only comfort. The government put out official notices forbidding all sale or distribution of her paintings. Nevertheless, she continued to paint. But her work of this period reflects her sense of isolation and repression. Death became a predominant theme in her works-symbolising the stranglehold of Nazi terror. Life now appeared to her as a dark figure blotting out all light and joy. And this is understandable. To her, the war must have seemed endless. She died in 1945, before the defeat of Nazi terror.
And yet she lives through her art, which was dedi-cated to the great cause of the oppressed and the exploited.