Käthe Kollwitz Museum (Cologne)
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| Established | 22 April 1985 |
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| Location |
Neumarkt 18-24, Cologne, Germany |
| Director | Hannelore Fischer |
| Public transit access | 1 3 4 7 9 12 16 18 Neumarkt |
| Website | www.kollwitz.de |
The Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Cologne owns the largest collections of works by the German artist Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) and has maintained close links with the Kollwitz family. The museum is owned and operated by the Kreissparkasse Köln savings bank.
The Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln was founded in 1985 on the occasion of the first presentation of the Käthe Kollwitz Collection of the Kreissparkasse Köln on 22 April 1985, the 40th anniversary of the death of the artist. This presentation took place in the former boardroom of the bank. Since 1989 the museum with its exhibition area of 1,000 square metres has been housed on the top floor of a Cologne Neumarkt shopping arcade (Neumarkt Gallerie) which was designed by Hans Schilling.
The history of the collection began in 1976 when, in the context of a Kollwitz exhibition in the bank’s foyer, the bank acquired two lithographs by the artist. Together with a set of 60 drawings, acquired from the Kollwitz family in 1983, these formed the foundation of the collection which is today the most comprehensive Kollwitz collection worldwide with roughly 300 drawings, more than 500 prints, all of Kollwitz’ posters, and all her sculptural works that can be shown as museum pieces.
The bank’s commitment in its role as operator of the museum is motivated by the historical links between the work of Kollwitz and the roots of the German savings banks movement. The artist’s themes – poverty, hunger, suffering – stand for those human hardships which the savings banks movement attempted to address in the 19th century. With the foundation of the museum, the Kreissparkasse Köln took the deliberate step of following the tradition of art patronage in Cologne. In accord with an agreement between the Kollwitz heirs and the bank, the collection is constantly amended, documented, made accessible for academic research and presented to the general public.
Dr Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz, Käthe Kollwitz’ granddaughter, was the founding director of the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Cologne. In January 1990, Hannelore Fischer MA took over as director of the museum.
All the artist’s great cycles of prints are in the possession of the museum – the early etching cycles based on literary models such as Ein Weberaufstand (The Weavers) (1893-1897) and Bauernkrieg (Peasant War) (1901-1908), the woodcut cycles Krieg (War) (1921/22) and Proletariat (1925), and the lithographic cycle Tod (Death) (1934-1937). In addition, the museum owns individual prints such as the large-scale colour lithograph Selbstbildnis en face (full face self-portrait) (1903/04), which was an experimental work without a print run, and her last lithograph Saatfrüchte sollen nicht vermahlt werden (Seed fruit is not to be ground down) (1941), the artist’s legacy directed against the death of soldiers and war.
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