- Title
- Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht
- Date Made
- 1919-1920
- Medium
- Woodcut
- Dimensions
- Image: 14 13/16 x 20 3/16 in. (37.62 x 51.28 cm); Sheet: 17 13/16 x 22 5/8 in. (45.24 x 57.47 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.82.287.35
- Collecting Area
- Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies
- Curatorial Notes
This woodcut commemorates the death of the early Communist leader Karl Liebknecht, who was murdered along with his colleague, Rosa Luxemburg, by right- wing paramilitary forces during the revolution that followed Germany’s defeat in World War I. Käthe Kollwitz labored to create an image that would appropriately memorialize Liebknecht, sketching a study of his face in death and creating multiple versions of the print in different media before finally settling on woodcut for its graphic impact. Liebknecht is not the focus of the final print; instead, Kollwitz draws our attention to the faces of his poor and working-class mourners. She would return to the expressive medium of woodcut to create the portfolio Sieben Holzschnitte zum Krieg (Seven Woodcuts on the War), two of which are on view here, in remembrance of her son Peter, who was killed in action.
Exhibition Label: Women’s Work: Art by Women in Germany, 1900–1933, 2021, Erin Maynes.
- Selected Bibliography
- Kaplan, Rachel, and Erin Sullivan Maynes. Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2022.
- Selected Exhibition History
- The German Woodcut: Renaissance and Expressionist Revival. October 29, 2022 - July 22, 2023
- The German Woodcut: Renaissance and Expressionist Revival. October 29, 2022 - July 22, 2023
