Print Exhibition: Prints by Käthe Kollwitz, 1919-1938

22 January–8 March 1987

Käthe Kollwitz saw art as a means to an end, never as art for art’s sake. She hoped that her work, executed in the democratic medium of the inexpensive large-edition print, would evoke social change in her native Germany. Many of her works were inspired by specific social and often political causes, and have often been dismissed as political propaganda. She designed posters for relief appeals on behalf of starving children, for relief in Russia and Vienna, and images against both World Wars and their profiteers. The exhibition displayed several of Kollwitz’s relief prints from the Smart Museum’s permanent collection, including Mothers, Help Russia, The Call of Death, and several self-portraits.

Curator: H. Rafael Chacón, graduate student assistant  

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