A Mother's Love

Growing up in a small Midwest town in the 1980s, I loved the artwork hanging in our stairwell depicting mothers holding fast to their children, but I never thought to ask who made them.  It was only later that I discovered they were reproductions of work by the famous German artist Käthe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945).  What I did know at the time was that the artworks my mother purchased from our local department store, one for each of us three kids, expressed a deep emotional bond between mother and child.  In my mind, those images reflected my own mother’s love and fostered comfort and hope throughout my childhood.

Mother with a Child in her Arms, final version, 1916 • Käthe Kollwitz Lithograph (Reproduction)

Maternal love is explored in the selection of Kollwitz’s artwork currently on view in Mia’s special exhibition, “Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945: Masterworks from the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin.” Included in the show are nine works on paper from Mia’s collection and a bronze sculpture from Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) in Berlin.  In 1911, Kollwitz drew the haunting image Mother with Dead Child.  She was familiar with such scenes from her husband’s medical clinic in an impoverished area of Berlin. Later, grief would be a feeling Kollwitz would come to know intimately with the death of her own son, Peter, in World War I. A series of seven woodblock prints titled War was published in 1923.  In these prints, Kollwitz explores the anguish and despair felt by those left behind after war has claimed its victims.

In the drawing Mother Pressing Her Children to Her, from 1932, one can feel the strength of the mother as she tightly hugs her children to her.  This was a theme Kollwitz worked on for many years, culminating in her famous 1936 bronze statue, Mother with two Children.  While this statue is not at Mia, we do have on view a beautiful small bronze, Tower of Mothers from 1937 - 38, that similarly depicts the fierce protectiveness mothers feel for their children when they sense a threat.  From heartbreaking anguish to fierce protectiveness, the breadth of love a mother can feel for her child is on full display at Mia.

Mother Pressing her Children to Her, 1932 • Käthe Kollwitz,

Conte crayon on paper

Gift of Alfred and Ingriud Lenz Harrison • 2023.57.1

When Modern Politics opened, I took my teenage daughter to see it with me.  Upon entering the Kollwitz section, we both quietly whispered my mother’s name.  At the time, when my mother bought those Kollwitz reproductions in 1980, she too had no idea who the artist was.  She was responding only to the message of maternal love.  Much later, my mother bought from the gallery where I worked three original prints by Käthe Kollwitz - a woodblock print, a lithograph and an etching.  In all her homes since, my mother hung these where they could be seen by all who visited.  She even gave a paper to her literary group about Käthe Kollwitz and to this day is known in my small hometown for her love of the artist.

Currently, these Kollwitz originals hang in my mother’s assisted living apartment.  Alzheimer’s is slowly taking away many of her memories, but she can still tell you the name of the German female artist who made those images of love, of pain and of sorrow.  Meanwhile, I treasure the old 1980’s department store reproductions that in addition to visually portraying tender maternal love contain in their history my mother’s love for me and my brothers and the beginning of her lifelong passion for Käthe Kollwitz.