Bread!

Bread!

ca 1924

Lithograph on paper

Mått 51,80 x 37,80 cm

G 1/1931

Purchase, 1931

From the book “The Collection: The Gothenburg Museum of Art”, Gothenburg 2014: Käthe Kollwitz (née Schmidt) was one of the twentieth century’s greatest Expressionists and political artists. Having studied art in Berlin, she married Dr Karl Kollwitz, whose rounds included the working-class district of Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. Through him Kollwitz saw at first hand the misery of the poor during the First World War. Her compassion for the poor and hungry is expressed in the heartbreaking Bread!, with hungry and sobbing children pulling desperately at their powerless mother. It is the very picture not only of physical suffering, but also of poverty, shame, and humiliation. Kollwitz lost the younger of her two sons in the First World War, something that strengthened her pacifism and is evident in a number of works, especially the sculpture Mother with Her Dead Son which is now in the Neue Wache in Berlin. Kollwitz is primarily known for her black-and-white pictures addressing social issues, but she also did several self-portraits. Hjalmar Gabrielson’s collection of self-portraits in the Gothenburg Museum of Art has Kollwitz’s self-portrait in charcoal. With a disillusioned eye, the artist gazes out at the viewer or at her own reflection. It shows her command of light, with shaded areas and a handful of pronounced outlines. Kristoffer Arvidsson

Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Björn Fredlund, Anna Hyltze, Philippa Nanfeldt, Isabella Nilsson, Johan Sjöström, Samlingen Göteborgs konstmuseum, red. Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Anna Hyltze, Göteborgs konstmuseum, Göteborg 2014., p. 304, ill. p. 304