German artist Käthe Kollwitz d 4/22/1945. Few artists were ever so committed to depicting the private struggles and suffering of the poor: hunger, unemployment, sickness, domestic violence, the oppressive burden of despair. And the hope of a better world.
Conversation
A pacifist and socialist—these words were not mere ideological labels. They represented a moral and spiritual affirmation of the preciousness of human life and a spirit of resistance to all the idols of death. Banned by the Nazis, she survived until days before the armistice.
“Culture arises only when the individual fulfills his cycle of obligations. If everyone recognizes and fulfills his cycle of obligations, genuineness emerges. The culture of a whole nation can in the final analysis be built upon nothing else.”—Käthe Kollwitz
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