1910, Kathe Kollwitz, Worker Woman with Earring -- Ludwig Museum (Cologne)
From the museum label:
Käthe Kollwitz - who herself came from a bourgeois household - has been fascinated by the life of workers since her youth. An initially naive interest later became a visualisation of social grievances.
In the doctor's office of her husband, Dr. Karl Kollwitz, she repeatedly encounters patients who are willing to pose for her. While drawing them, the exchange deepened, Kollwitz gained insights into working-class life and learned of tragedies, suffering and strokes of fate.
"A worker's wife shows me much more of her figure and her nature than the lady who is constricted by convention in everything she does. She shows me her hands, her feet, her hair, she lets me see her body through her dress; she is also much more unveiled in her expressions of feeling."
1910, Kathe Kollwitz, Worker Woman with Earring -- Ludwig Museum (Cologne)
From the museum label:
Käthe Kollwitz - who herself came from a bourgeois household - has been fascinated by the life of workers since her youth. An initially naive interest later became a visualisation of social grievances.
In the doctor's office of her husband, Dr. Karl Kollwitz, she repeatedly encounters patients who are willing to pose for her. While drawing them, the exchange deepened, Kollwitz gained insights into working-class life and learned of tragedies, suffering and strokes of fate.
"A worker's wife shows me much more of her figure and her nature than the lady who is constricted by convention in everything she does. She shows me her hands, her feet, her hair, she lets me see her body through her dress; she is also much more unveiled in her expressions of feeling."