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Käthe Kollwitz

Memorial for Karl Liebknecht, 1920

Description

Maker

Title

Memorial for Karl Liebknecht

Year

1920

Medium

Woodcut on paper

Materials/Techniques

Materials

Supports

Dimensions

Image: 34.9 x 49.9 cm (13 3/4 x 19 5/8 inches)

Identification

State

Kn. 159, state Vb

Type

Credit

Anonymous gift

Object Number

2005.142.14

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

A Process of Protest

July 28 - November 26, 2006

While experimenting with her memorial to Karl Liebknecht in etching and lithography, Kollwitz attended an exhibition of works by Ernst Barlach (German, 1870-1938). A book of woodcuts by Barlach may be viewed in the case in this gallery. Kollwitz wrote:

…I saw something that knocked me over: Barlach’s woodcuts. Today I’ve looked at my lithographs again and seen that almost all of them are no good. Barlach has found his path and I have not yet found mine. I can no longer etch; I’m through with that for good. [Journal entry of June 25, 1920]

Kollwitz sold this woodcut, her first, in an unlimited edition at the Worker’s Art Exhibition, Berlin, in 1920. The composition of men hunched in mourning over the body of the fallen revolutionary brings to mind a Christian Lamentation.

Dreams and Nightmares

November 5, 2004 - January 23, 2005

Karl Liebknecht co-founded the Spartacus Union, which became the German communist party, and led the revolutionary uprising in Berlin in January 1919. On January 15, 1919, he and fellow Spartacus leader Rosa Luxemburg were taken prisoner by right-wing militiamen and brutally killed. The murders shook the dream of working-class revolution and revealed the ruthlessness of right-wing forces.

Kollwitz drew Liebknecht on his funeral bier and gradually developed this print over the next two years. In her diary she stated: “As an artist, I have the right to extract the emotional content from everything, to let it make an impression on me and to express it externally. So I also have the right to represent the workers’ farewell to Liebknecht, even to dedicate it to the workers, without thereby following Liebknecht politically. Or not?!”
(Kollwitz, October 1920 entry, Tagebücher, p. 438; cited in Martin Fritsch, ed., Käthe Kollwitz: Zeichnung, Grafik, Plastik. Leipzig: 1999, p. 210).

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Memorial for Karl Liebknecht with the accession number of 2005.142.14. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.