Käthe Kollwitz

Self-Portrait, Hand at the Forehead (Selbstbildnis mit der Hand an der Stirn)

1910, published c. 1946/1948

Etching and drypoint

Not on view

In this searing self-portrait, Kollwitz homes in tightly on her face, isolating her careworn features and grave expression. Brooding introspection permeates Kollwitz's work, which is, at its core, an expression of compassion for her fellow man, especially for the suffering of women, children, and the poor in Germany during the cataclysmic years before, during, and after the two world wars. She dedicated herself to printmaking, believing that it was the medium best suited to social and political commentary. Self-portraiture was an important recurring subject in her work, and this intense, almost confrontational image is a particularly powerful example....

Gallery label from

New to the Print Collection: Matisse to Bourgeois, June 13, 2012–January 7, 2013.

Medium Etching and drypoint
Dimensions plate: 6 1/16 x 5 1/2" (15.4 x 13.9 cm); sheet: 13 1/8 x 9 13/16" (33.3 x 24.9 cm)
Publisher Alexander von der Becke, Verlag des graphischen Werkes von Käthe Kollwitz, Berlin
Printer Otto Felsing, Berlin
Edition approx. 1450 in the periodical Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, vol. 26, no. 12 (1914/1915); 50 signed and numbered, published by Emil Richter Verlag, Dresden, 1918; "Lettered print" edition of unknown size published by Emil Richter Verlag, Dresden, 1921; "Lettered print" editions of unknown size on Japan, copperplate engraving and imitation japan paper published by Alexander von der Becke, Berlin, since 1931; plus posthumous editions of unknown size published by Alexander von der Becke, Berlin, between 1946/48 [this ex.] and 1963/65
Credit Gift of Mrs. Milton Weill
Object number 246.1982
Department Drawings and Prints

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Käthe Kollwitz

Käthe Kollwitz

German, 1867–1945 49 works online

Born in the Prussian city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1867, Käthe Kollwitz established herself in an art world dominated by men by developing an aesthetic vision centered on women and the working class.

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