Käthe Kollwitz

Kollwitz’s deeply humanistic art made her a strong voice for the proletarian and oppressed. Barlach, friend and colleague, was influential at a critical phase in her career; so too were Klinger and (however brief their meetings) Rodin. She had met and been impressed by Hauptmann several years before making a series of prints based around a play of his, a turning-point in her artistic life. Grosz and Einstein were involved with her in setting up a left-wing workers’ organisation. Her colleague Mann and she were sacked together for leading artists against nazi oppression, though her work was never proscribed.