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Käthe Kollwitz, Misery (1895-96)

Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) was one of the most prolific – and political – graphic artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She was keenly interested in the situation of the poor and the working class. The lithograph below, which is set in a cramped, dark room, captures the most painful possible moment in the life of a mother – the death of a child. A number of Kollwitz’s works portray the mother-child relationship, which was often cut short in Germany’s impoverished working-class neighborhoods, where child-mortality rates were high.

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Käthe Kollwitz, <i>Misery</i> (1895-96)

© Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz
Photo: Jörg P. Anders