About this artwork
The choice of soft-ground etching here provides a degree of tonal subtlety in Kollwitz’s print which imitates drawing in print form. To produce this effect, Kollwitz would have laid a sheet of paper over a metal plate treated with a soft ground, then drawn onto the paper, the pressure of her pencil lifting areas of waxy ground from the plate for etching. Kollwitz made several drawings of heads, mainly from working-class women who she felt presented and expressed themselves openly with no disguises. She spoke of the 'gravity and tragedy of the most miserable kind of proletarian existence' visible in the appearance of the women who attended her husband's surgery.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Käthe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945) German
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title:Gesenkter Frauenkopf [Woman with Bowed Head]
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date created:1905
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materials:Soft-ground etching on paper
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measurements:37.60 x 31.70 cm (paper 60.00 x 44.90 cm)
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 1979
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accession number:GMA 2096
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gallery:
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subject:
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glossary:
Käthe Kollwitz
Käthe Kollwitz
Kollwitz was born in Königsberg, East Prussia and trained in Berlin and Munich. In 1891 she married a doctor and moved to a poor area of Berlin where she experienced poverty at first hand. Kollwitz's social and political views were integral to her art, which consists almost entirely of prints (...