Käthe Kollwitz

Although this work was not titled a self-portrait, Kollwitz inserted her likeness into the image. Executed in transfer lithography, Kollwitz utilized the grain of the paper to produce a textured, rough edge, which adds to the seeming frailty and age of the figure. Kollwitz struggled against growing old for much of her life. She wrote in an undated letter in the mid 1920s: “As in everything else, I find that age is not good for much, that one becomes deafer and less sensitive. Alas, the higher up the mountain you climb, the less of a view you get. A mist closes in and cheats you of the hoped-for and expected opportunity to see far and wide…”