Woman and Children Going to Their Death (Fraumit Kindern in den Tod Gehend)

Art Historical Context

Käthe Kollwitz's woodcut *Woman and Children Going to Death* (1924) captures the harrowing human cost of war with unflinching emotional power. Part of her seminal *War* series (*Krieg*), this print depicts a mother leading her children toward an inevitable fate, evoking the devastation Kollwitz witnessed during and after World War I.ly influenced by the loss of her own son in 1914, the German artist channeled her grief into works that mourned civilians—especially women and children—caught in conflict's crossfire. As a master of Expressionism, Kollwitz favored woodcuts for their raw, graphic i...

About the Artist

Käthe Kollwitz

Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was a German artist whose powerful images of poverty, war, and maternal grief established her as the foremost practitioner of socially engaged art in early 20th-century Europe. Working primarily in printmaking—including etching, lithography, and woodcut—as well as drawing and sculpture, Kollwitz created works of raw emotional power that gave voice to the suffering of wor...