Standing Woman Feeding Her Son

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. Her works often focus on the plight of the working class and she used her art as social commentary throughout her life. 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.