Käthe Kollwitz. I want to act in this time. Drawings, prints, sculptures.
Strasbourg Museums| N° d'inventaire | 22264 |
| Format | 24 x 32 |
| Détails | 220 p., hardcover. |
| Publication | Strasbourg, 2019 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782351251676 |
The poignant work of a woman artist who vigorously addresses social conflicts, maternal love, war, and mourning. Engravings, drawings, and sculptures form a body of work of great formal virtuosity, always fueled by an unvarnished commitment to serving the weakest and a touching sincerity. Born in 1867 and dying a few days before the end of the Second World War, Käthe Kollwitz is one of the most significant German artistic figures of the first half of the 20th century. A true institution in her country, where her work and political commitment are unanimously acclaimed, she remains very little known in France. The exhibition organized at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg and the accompanying catalog invite the French public to discover a visual body of work (engravings, drawings, sculptures) of extraordinary vigor and formal mastery. Kathe Kollwitz was born in 1867 into a deeply socialist family. She demonstrated a marked talent for drawing very early on, which she put to the service of a cause from the beginning of her work: the denunciation of the oppression exercised on the poorest, to which she was made aware by her family environment, but also by her readings, among others of Zola. She thus produced two important series of engravings, The Peasants' War and The Weavers' Revolt, inspired by historical facts or theatrical works, which poignantly depict with striking formal inventiveness the misery and courage of the weakest. The reception of her work was immediately ambivalent: admired by her peers, she faced several refusals to be exhibited, whether from the Prussian government or the Nazi institutions. Co-founder of the "Organisation of Women Artists", she was the first woman to be admitted as a member of the Academy and to place the female figure, including in the darkest reality of her condition, at the heart of an atypical expressionist work, undoubtedly closer to the realist novel than to the artistic landscape of her time. When she lost one of her volunteer sons in the early days of the First World War, she sublimated her pain with drawings and sculptures of exceptional force, and quickly committed herself to the service of pacifism. Her committed work is complemented by a very intimate side, as evidenced by the continuous practice of autobiography and journaling. We discover there that her questions and formal explorations are always in the service of a cause: to denounce with the greatest possible vigor and expressiveness the condition of the proletariat, and in particular of women.
The poignant work of a woman artist who vigorously addresses social conflicts, maternal love, war, and mourning. Engravings, drawings, and sculptures form a body of work of great formal virtuosity, always fueled by an unvarnished commitment to serving the weakest and a touching sincerity. Born in 1867 and dying a few days before the end of the Second World War, Käthe Kollwitz is one of the most significant German artistic figures of the first half of the 20th century. A true institution in her country, where her work and political commitment are unanimously acclaimed, she remains very little known in France. The exhibition organized at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg and the accompanying catalog invite the French public to discover a visual body of work (engravings, drawings, sculptures) of extraordinary vigor and formal mastery. Kathe Kollwitz was born in 1867 into a deeply socialist family. She demonstrated a marked talent for drawing very early on, which she put to the service of a cause from the beginning of her work: the denunciation of the oppression exercised on the poorest, to which she was made aware by her family environment, but also by her readings, among others of Zola. She thus produced two important series of engravings, The Peasants' War and The Weavers' Revolt, inspired by historical facts or theatrical works, which poignantly depict with striking formal inventiveness the misery and courage of the weakest. The reception of her work was immediately ambivalent: admired by her peers, she faced several refusals to be exhibited, whether from the Prussian government or the Nazi institutions. Co-founder of the "Organisation of Women Artists", she was the first woman to be admitted as a member of the Academy and to place the female figure, including in the darkest reality of her condition, at the heart of an atypical expressionist work, undoubtedly closer to the realist novel than to the artistic landscape of her time. When she lost one of her volunteer sons in the early days of the First World War, she sublimated her pain with drawings and sculptures of exceptional force, and quickly committed herself to the service of pacifism. Her committed work is complemented by a very intimate side, as evidenced by the continuous practice of autobiography and journaling. We discover there that her questions and formal explorations are always in the service of a cause: to denounce with the greatest possible vigor and expressiveness the condition of the proletariat, and in particular of women.