Few artists are as universally beloved as the German printmaker, draftsman, and sculptor Kathe Kollwitz, whose powerful images of mothers and children and of protest against social injustice have long been admired by both critics and the public. Kollwitz, a woman in a field dominated by men, steadfastly adhered to a figurative style in the era of abstraction and depicted socially engaged subject matter when it was unfashionable. Kollwitz is largely known through political posters and restrikes of her prints. Her reputation has to some extent been dominated by an emphasis on the social content of her work, often at the expense of her remarkable artistic skills. The present study challenges that view by focusing on the artistic aspect of her achievement. The book consists of three essays on Kollwitz. Elizabeth Prelinger provides a reassessment of Kollwitz as an artist; Alessandra Comini presents a richly atmospheric discussion of the artist's life in Berlin during the tumultuous period that spanned two world wars; and Hildegard Bachert surveys the reception of Kollwitz in Germany and the United States as manifested in collections of her works. The volume, which includes a selection of the finest examples of Kollwitz' oeuvre, juxtaposes preparatory drawings with finished art, illustrating the arduous experimental processes by which she attained her brilliant results. Themes important to Kollwitz--such as self-portraits, social activism as illustrated in the cycles A Weavers' Rebellion and Peasants' War, love and death, nudes, workers, war and revolution--are explored in depth in all media. The book will serve as the catalogue for an exhibition of Kollwitz' prints, drawings, and works of sculpture at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from May 3 to August 26, 1992.

Käthe Kollwitz

Arts & Photography

Alessandra Comini

Elizabeth Prelinger

Hildegard Bachert

Graphic Design

National Gallery of Art / Yale University Press

The Symbolist Prints of Edvard Munch: The Vivian and David Campbell Collection

Edvard Munch is one of the twentieth century's greatest printmakers, and his works―particularly The Scream and Madonna―have made their way into the popular culture of our time. This handsome book considers Munch's graphic work through the lens of an extraordinary private collection that includes outstanding impressions of virtually every one of his major prints, along with alternate versions and early states. The book underscores the technically experimental nature of Munch's Symbolist prints and demonstrates the great themes of love and death that characterize his fin de siècle imagery. Elizabeth Prelinger discusses Munch as a Symbolist printmaker, providing background on Munch as a graphic artist and exploring how he devised innovative methods to fuse technique and meaning in his Symbolist themes. Michael Parke-Taylor reconstructs the reception of Munch's art in America, tracing a reputation that continues to grow a half century after the artist's death. Peter Schjeldahl poetically evokes Munch's work and accounts for the artist's rock star-like career then and now, and tells how Munch has entered popular consciousness and how he is relevant to a contemporary audience. These essays are accompanied by a detailed catalogue of the fifty-eight prints in the collection, as well as reproductions of the paintings that relate to the prints and many documentary and comparative illustrations.

Michael Parke-Taylor

Individual Artists

Yale University Press

Expressing the anxieties of the late nineteenth century and the uncertainties of the modern world, Edvard Munch (1862-1944) often depicted in his works dangerously seductive fin de siècle women, sickly figures, and isolated characters in barren landscapes. These powerful, haunting paintings are widely recognized and revered, especially his iconic work The Scream (1893). Yet few admirers of Munch's early works realize that the artist lived well into the twentieth century and was enormously productive almost to the time of his death. This compelling book, focusing on more than sixty of Munch's later paintings, reveals the surprising, vibrant work of a fascinating man who never ceased to grow as an artist. Following decades of restless wandering among the capitals of Europe, Munch suffered a breakdown in Copenhagen in 1908 and retreated to his native Norway. In 1916 he purchased an estate near present-day Oslo where he lived and worked, mostly in his outdoor studio, for the next twenty years. Although Munch never abandoned a deeply introspective approach to image-making, in his later works he expressed a new attachment to the visible world, adopting a fresh range of subjects and a looser, brighter painting style. The pictures of this period-full of vivid color, evocative atmospheres, and visual drama-are a revelation, casting new light on one of the most complex artists of the modern era. :

After the Scream: The Late Paintings of Edvard Munch

History & Criticism

American Impressionism presents outstanding works by turn-of-the-century painters who often worked outdoors to capture brilliant effects of light and color. A generation of artists such as Childe Hassam, John Twachtman, Thomas and Maria Oakey Dewing, and William Merritt Chase studied abroad and absorbed advanced ideas that were revolutionizing painting in France. Landscapes, domestic scenes, and elegant figure compositions by Theodore Robinson, Mary Cassatt, and Robert Reid show the freedom and sparkling qualities of the new impressionist style. Early in the twentieth century, Maurice Prendergast and Daniel Garber took impressionism in new, more modern directions.

American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Watson/Guptill

The period from the 1870s through the 1920s saw the creation of works inspired by romantic literature, Middle Eastern cultures, and "masculine" landscapes, by artists like John Singer Sargent, Cecilia Beaux, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Frederick Arthur Bridgman, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and Winslow Homer, among others. Fifty-two color plates display paintings (and a few sculptures) on facing pages with descriptive commentary by Prelinger (art history, Georgetown U.). This book represents one of eight exhibitions in "Treasures to Go," from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, touring the nation through 2002. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The Gilded Age: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Provides commentary on paintings selected from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection, unified by the shared theme of common people and daily life, including work by artists such as Agnes Tait and Ralston Crawford.

Scenes of American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Smithsonian Amer Art Museum

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