Death and Mother Struggling Over the Child

Käthe Kollwitz was a prolific printmaker and sculptor whose long career spanned the politically and artistically turbulent decades of the first half of the twentieth century in Germany. Subjects such as war, death, and misery and the corresponding themes of struggle, suffering, and loss make for an oeuvre that is both somber and moving. Her many works on the theme of a mother and child are characterized by a combination of helplessness and devotion that make them particularly affecting. Her stylistic transition from naturalism to a unique form of expressionism heightened the dramatic content of her works.