Die Mutter (The mothers)

Kollwitz has reduced the amount of detail and pared down the forms to achieve an almost sculptural quality in this powerfully evocative lithograph, showing a group of mothers protecting their children from the effects of war. She later made a woodcut version of the same subject as part of her 1923 series entitled 'War'. "I have repeatedly attempted to give form to the war. I could never grasp it." Kollwitz first worked on 'Die Mutter' as an etching, but she experienced problems in resolving the image in this medium. She wrote: '...I told myself that the simple line of the lithograph was best suited to my purposes. But the results of my work, except for the print 'Die mutte', never satisfied me' (Kathe Kollwitz, 25 June 1920, published in Kollwitz 1988, p.98).