Käthe Kollwitz – Images of a Life

Director: Ralf Kirsten | Colour | 93 minutes | GDR 1986
German, with English subtitles

A cinematic portrait of German artist Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), who was always close to social movements. As well as reflecting on various stages in her life, the film traces her artistic stimulus and to relate it to the political events of the 20th century.

Käthe Kollwitz was 47 years old and already a well-established artist in Germany and abroad when Peter, her youngest son, volunteered to join the German army in World War I - two weeks later, he was killed. This painful tragedy changed Kollwitz’s life and art forever. She became a radical pacifist, and through her art she reflected on her son and on the meaning of war. After signing a petition against the Nazis, she was excluded from the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin and her art was labeled “degenerate.” Lonely and sick, Kollwitz spent the last days of her life near Dresden and died at the age of 78, before the end of World War II. 

The exhibition Käthe Kollwitz: Life, Death and War is currently on show in our Print Gallery. Admission free.

This screening is presented in co-operation with the Goethe-Institut Irland