{"id":171027,"date":"2021-04-06T07:00:28","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=171027"},"modified":"2021-04-06T10:28:22","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T14:28:22","slug":"new-benton-exhibition-explores-work-of-kathe-kollwitz-who-used-art-as-platform-for-activism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2021\/04\/new-benton-exhibition-explores-work-of-kathe-kollwitz-who-used-art-as-platform-for-activism\/","title":{"rendered":"Benton Exhibition Explores Work of K\u00e4the Kollwitz, Who Used Art as Platform for Activism"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

The German artist K\u00e4the Kollwitz (1867-1945) was a printmaker who used her art to advocate against social injustice, war, and inhumanity. Her name is among those taken by the feminist activist artists known as Guerrilla Girls to expose gender and ethnic bias and corruption in politics, the arts, and pop culture.

More than 100 works created by Kollwitz were part of the foundation of the permanent collection of art at the William Benton Museum of Art<\/a> donated by Walter Landauer, a professor of animal genetics at UConn and a German expatriate who exclusively collected the artist\u2019s lithographs, woodcuts, and drawings. The Benton\u2019s permanent collection also includes the 89-piece \u201cGuerrilla Girls Portfolio Compleat (1985-2012).\u201d

The Benton\u2019s current exhibition, \u201cK\u00e4the Kollwitz Activism Through Art,\u201d explores the relationship between Kollwitz\u2019s art and her activism, with stark woodcut prints depicting themes of war, poverty, and suffering.<\/p>\r\n

\"K\u00e4the
K\u00e4the Kollwitz (1867-1945), Selbstbildnis<\/em> [Self-Portrait] (1919), Lithograph, William Benton Museum of Art, The Walter Landauer Collection of K\u00e4the Kollwitz.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

\u201cHer work was used in leaflets, postcards, and posters throughout her career, but especially during the 1920s, when she became more politically active,\u201d says Amanda Douberley, assistant curator and academic liaison at The Benton. \u201cAt the height of her fame, the artist lent her instantly recognizable style to support a range of progressive causes, including anti-war demonstrations and also international aid efforts.\u201d

Kollwitz, who was married to a physician, used her two sons along with the working class women and children who visited her husband\u2019s clinic as subjects for her artwork, which addressed issues in German politics and history. She created works about the 1844 oppression of Silesian weavers, the 16th century German Peasants’ War, and World War I, when one of the casualties was her son, Peter. She also made many self-portraits.

\u201cThe self-portraits are really notable for how unflinchingly honest they are and for almost never showing her as looking particularly happy,\u201d Douberley says. \u201cShe looks very serious.\u201d

Douberley notes that Kollwitz once wrote that, \u201cIt is my duty to voice the sufferings of men, the never ending sufferings heaped mountain high. This is my task, but it is not an easy one.\u201d

Douberley says the museum\u2019s adjustments due to the pandemic presented an opportunity to present a solo exhibition of Kollwitz\u2019s work, which had not occurred since 2007.

\u201cWe have this fantastic collection of her art, thanks to Dr. Landauer\u2019s generosity, and it felt like a great moment to share it,\u201d she says. \u201cNot only because it’s such a highlight from the Benton’s collection, but also because of the way that her work might resonate for people in our contemporary moment, the kinds of issues that Kollwitz was addressing, and her political engagement. She seemed like a good choice.\u201d

\u201cK\u00e4the Kollwitz: Activism Through Art\u201d continues through April 10 at the William Benton Museum of Art. Due to the pandemic, hours are Wednesday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work at UConn since 2007<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":171104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1711,1914,2235,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1918],"class_list":["post-171027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-sfa","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 01:53:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171027"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171112,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171027\/revisions\/171112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/171104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171027"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=171027"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=171027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}