Käthe Kollwitz
Die Eltern (The Parents), Number III

ArtistGerman, 1867–1945
CultureGerman
Titles
  • Die Eltern (The Parents), Number III
  • from the portfolio Krieg (War)
Date1922–1923
MediumWoodcut on Japanese paper, trial proof of second version of state III/VII
DimensionsBlock: 14 5/8 × 17 3/4 in. (37.1 × 45.1 cm)
Sheet: 15 1/2 × 18 5/16 in. (39.4 × 46.5 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Alvin S. Romansky Prints and Drawings Accessions Endowment Fund
Object number2003.983
Non exposé

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Object Type
DescriptionKäthe Kollwitz was one of Germany’s foremost
printmakers and sculptors in the first decades
of the 20th century. She often expressed an
immediate empathy for the less fortunate
by showing victims of poverty and war, while
her strong sculptural sensibility also found
expression in the graphic impact of her
roughly hewn woodcuts. This print of two
parents huddling together and collapsing
in on each other relates to the deep, abiding
grief that Kollwitz felt after her youngest
son died in 1914 fighting in World War I.
Provenance[Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett, Germany, 1951, auction 14, lot 1693]; Sauerwein Collection, Munich; Ingeborg Tremmel (1925-2002), Munich; [The Tremmel Collection, Ketterer Kunst, Munich, May 6, 2003, lot 668]; [Garton & Co. Print Dealers and Publishers, Devizes, England, 2003]; purchased by MFAH, 2003.
Exhibition HistoryAcquisitions of the Last Five Years: Selections of Modern and Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Upper Brown Pavilion, July 15, 2005 - October 15, 2005.

Exhibited: "Going with the Grain: Woodcuts from Houston Collections," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Cameron Gallery, January 31 - April 19, 2009.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Recto: Inscribed in graphtie, below image, lower left: 2 Fassung 3. Zust 10 [2nd version, 3rd state]
Recto: Signed in graphite, below image, lower right: Käthe Kollwitz
Verso: Inscribed in graphite, lower left: Kollwitz Eltern [possibly, illegible] 1923 [possibly] Wagner 156

Recto: Signed in graphite, below image, lower right: Käthe Kollwitz
Catalogue raisonnéKlipstein 176; Knesebeck 194

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Die Eltem (The Parents)
Käthe Kollwitz
1921–1922
Woodcut on wove paper, version c/d, state V/V, edition 89/100
2023.453
The Lonely Tower
Samuel Palmer
1879
Etching and drypoint with scraping on wove paper, trial proof, state V/VII
2017.253
Woman with Dead Child
Käthe Kollwitz
1903, published 1921
Hard- and soft-ground etching, drypoint, and emery with engraving on heavy cream wove paper, state IX/X, from an edition of unknown number
2023.454
Die Gefangenen (The Prisoners)
Käthe Kollwitz
1908, published 1921
Etching on wove paper
36.1
L'Exécution de Maximilien (The Execution of Maximilian)
Edouard Manet
c. 1867–1868, possibly printed 1868
Lithograph with scraping, printed chine collé on heavy wove paper, state I/III, trial proof, before lettering
91.1567
Head of a Working Woman in Three-Quarter Profile Turned to the Right
Käthe Kollwitz
1905
Lithograph on tan wove paper
2000.85
Weberzug (March of the Weavers)
Käthe Kollwitz
c. 1897
Etching on wove paper
77.358
Uberfahren (The Runover)
Käthe Kollwitz
c. 1910–1913
Soft ground and hard ground etching on wove paper
39.114
Ste Sebastienne "small"
Louise Bourgeois
c. 1993
Drypoint, proof, first version, state V
96.135
River Stour, Suffolk
David Lucas
1829–1832
Mezzotint, state III/VII
2023.471.5
Untitled
Norman Zammitt
1967
Lithograph in colors on Japanese nacre kozo paper, trial proof E/R
2023.451
Untitled (Secondaries with Black)
Jasper Johns
1991
Etching and aquatint in colors with scraping and burnishing on Japanese paper, variant trial proof
94.726