Working Woman with Blue Shawl

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Käthe Kollwitz favored printmaking because she saw it as a democratic medium, affordable and capable of reaching all social classes. In prints such as this portrait of a female worker, she depicted Berlin’s most disenfranchised inhabitants. The sitter’s direct gaze and exhausted pose suggest not only her difficult living and working conditions but also her dignity. Käthe Kollwitz's husband was a doctor who treated the working poor in Berlin, giving her firsthand experience with their struggles.