Female 20th Century German Expressionist Painter - Kathe Kollwitz

Born in 1867 to a father who was a radical social democrat who became a mason and house builder and educated by her grandfather on matters of religion and socialism Kathe Kollwitz dedicated her life to political activism. From an early age she was confronted by death when her younger brother died, leaving her deeply affected.

Her father's encouragement beginning at the age of 12 saw her progress artistically until she was old enough to go the Women's School of Art in Berlin, at a time when women were not allowed to study like men. At the age of 17 she got engaged to a medical student Karl Kollwitz whom she would not marry until 1891 when he was a qualified doctor. In the years in between she studied at Munich woman's art school, discovering there that she was a more talented draftsman than painter, then she returned to her home and rented a studio where she continued to draw Germany's working class laborers.

Two of her greatest works were The Weavers: an etching cycle inspired by the oppression of Silesian Weavers in Langembielau and their ultimately unsuccessful buy violent revolt in 1842, and The Peasant War: and etching cycle equally inspired by a violent revolution this time in southern Germany during the early years of the reformation when, in 1525, the peasants took arms against the feudal lords of the church who treated them as slaves.

During WWI she lost her one of her sons to the fighting and lost a grandson to WWII. All throughout her life she was a pacifist and produced anti-war art. She provided prints for the left-wing publications of pre-Nazi Germany and during the power struggle which followed the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II sought to ally the workers with the communist Soviets.

When the strongly anti-communist Nazis came to power they banned her from exhibiting and stripped her of her teaching post at the Berlin Academy of Art. Despite all this she stayed in Germany. She left Berlin in 1943, and during the latter days of the war her house was destroyed by an allied bomb, taking with it the majority of her work, all except a small portfolio she took with her.

In 1932 she finally finished her monument to the son she had lost in 1914: sculptures called The Grieving Parents. She was the first woman to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts. She died in 1945 in Moritzburg.

Works: The Weavers

Peasant War

Death and Woman

Death Woman and Child

Discover more of these artists and what they painted here:

http://www.squidoo.com/moonshine-art

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Kirsty_Semple/109534

German Expressionist Painter - George Grosz

As did many of the German artists of the time George Grosz fought in the trenches of WWI, having volunteered for military service. In 1915 he was discharged on medical grounds however he was drafted in the January of 1917 due to the shortage of soldiers, where he did not fight but guarded and transported prisoners of war, but by the May he was given permanent discharge as he was unfit for duty after a suicide attempt forced them to diagnose shell shock. Having faced his own disillusionment about the nature of war he turned his attention the bourgeoisies of 1920s Germany and painted a series of mocking caricatures of them and those who were in support of war.

He provided illustrations for German left-wing publications through his involvement with the German Dada group, and became a member of the KPD, the German communist party in 1919. He was arrested during the Spartacist uprising which marked the end of the German revolution, but he escaped using fake identification papers. In 1921 he was accused of insulting the army and was fined 300 German marks and had his work Gott Mit uns, God With Us - a satire condemning German Society - destroyed.

After spending five months in Russia meeting with people like Trotsky and Lenin he left the KPD, unwilling to live under any sort of dictator and as such his politics were strongly ant-Nazi. He was invited by the Art Studies League of New York to teach there in 1933, just at the time when the Nazis came to power. He received word that they had been to his apartment and his studio looking for him and so he stayed in America, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1938. During this time his work become more romantic and to many this signaled a decline.

He continued to teach, forming a private art school in his own home during the 1950s and he worked as an artist in residence. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1954. He returned to Berlin where he died after a fall down some stairs in 1959.

Works: Suicide 1916

Fit For Active Service 1918

Grey Day 1921

The Face of the Ruling Class 1921

The Eclipse of the Sun 1928

Discover more of these artists and what they painted here:

http://www.squidoo.com/moonshine-art

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Kirsty_Semple/109534