Compare these two printmakers. What do they have in common and how do they differ? Look at their lives, time they lived, what they were influenced by and their artistic style. Which do you like better? Explain your answers fully.
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Käthe Kollwitz, Superprintmaker
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| Woman in the Lap of Death, woodcut by Käthe Kollwitz, 1921 |
Speaking of making the world a better place, Käthe Kollwitz was an
artist who tried to do just that… And unfortunately, her world was in
need of an awful lot of bettering. Born in Germany in 1867, one of
Kollwitz's sons was killed in World War I and a grandson was killed in
World War II. Her husband was a doctor who worked with the poor,
providing her with a constant view of the suffering caused by social
injustice, as well as a respect for the beauty and bravery of these
hard-working people. In 1920 she became the first woman elected to the
Prussian Academy of Arts, but she
was forced to resign by the Nazis when they came to power. She died in 1945 just before the end of World War II.
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| Hunger, woodcut by Kollwitz, 1925 |
was forced to resign by the Nazis when they came to power. She died in 1945 just before the end of World War II.
Kollwitz's radical father encouraged his daughter's drawing talent and arranged for her to have art lessons. When she went to an art school for women in Berlin she decided that painting was not her strength, and began doing etchings and other printmaking techniques. A little later, looking for more strength and power in her images, she also took up woodcuts. Her prints were widely acclaimed, and her international fame and popularity were such that although the Nazis threatened her, they did not arrest her.
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| Mary and Elisabeth, woodcut by Kollwitz, 1928 |
Although so much of her work focusses on tragic themes,
Kollwitz's art is not unrelieved doom and gloom. Here is a lovely one
showing Elizabeth and Mary from the gospel of Luke, two pregnant woman
greeting each other and sharing their profound awe and joy. (Of course,
both these mothers lost their sons, a theme Kollwitz knew all too
well.)
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Self-Portrait, woodcut by Kollwitz, 1924
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Although Kollwitz suffered from periodic bouts of depression and
had so much cause for despair in the world she saw around her, she never
stopped trying to use her art to wake people up to the tragedies of
injustice and cruelty.
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Andy Warhol
American painter, printmaker, sculptor, draughtsman, illustrator, film
maker, writer and collector. After studying at the Carnegie Institute of
Technology in Pittsburgh from 1945 to 1949, he moved to New York and
began working as a commercial artist and illustrator for magazines and
newspapers. Warhol continued to support himself through his commercial work until at
least 1963, but from 1960 he determined to establish his name as a
painter. Motivated by a desire to be taken as seriously as the young
artists whose work he had recently come to know and admire, especially
Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, he began by painting a series of
pictures based on crude advertisements and on images from comic strips.
These are among the earliest examples of Pop Art.
In the 1960s a new artistic style overtook New York. Known as Pop Art
and defined by its cool impersonality, this style embraced American
popular culture, utilizing comics, tabloid photographs, and movie stills
as artistic inspiration. Perhaps the best-known Pop artist was Andy
Warhol, who conceived a new idea of the artist as celebrity.
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| Andy Warhol
1966. Silkscreen ink on synthetic
polymer paint on nine canvases
Each canvas 22 1/2 x 22 1/2" (57.2 x
57.2 cm),
overall 67 5/8 x 67 5/8" (171.7 x 171.7 cm)
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Self-Portrait (1966) was constructed in what would become one of Warhol’s signature styles—a grid of bright, repeated silkscreenedprimary and secondary colors as well as different shades of the same color. portraits. An expert colorist, Warhol paired
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| ANDY
WARHOL
American, 1928 - 1987 Self-Portrait , 1986 Acrylic screen print on canvas 80 x 80 inches |
In the latter part of his career, Warhol focused more and more on portraiture. He created portraits
of people he admired—musicians Michael Jackson and Grace Jones,
athletes O.J. Simpson and Muhammed Ali—as well as wealthy socialites he
met on the New York social circuit. By the mid-1960s, Warhol had amassed
a huge public following of artists, filmmakers, performers, writers,
and art patrons seduced by his persona. Engaging in the painting of self-portraits
only further cultivated his fame. In time, Warhol’s self-portraits
became as famous as the iconic portraits of Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth
Taylor. The artist had himself become a celebrity. He used these portraits not only to question the originality of the
artistic image but also to explore themes of death, celebrity, and
postwar culture.
In this ghost-like self-portrait, produced a few months before his
death, Warhol stares out at the viewer with an impenetrable glare. The
artist’s disembodied head floats against an inky black background, his
image silkscreened in a pale violet. Slack-jawed and wearing a platinum fright wig, Warhol likens his face to a skull or death mask.
