“The artist is usually a child of his times, especially if his formative years fell in the period of early socialism.”

— Käthe Kollwitz

Reply to questionnaire sent to prominent artists, (1942/1943), quoted in Käthe Kollwitz (1971) by Otto Nagel, translated by Stella Humphries.
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Context: The artist is usually a child of his times, especially if his formative years fell in the period of early socialism. My formative years coincided with that period, and I was totally caught up in the socialist movement. At that time, the idea of a conscious commitment to serve the proletariat was the farthest thing from my mind. But what use to me were principles of beauty like those of the Greeks, for example, principles that I could not feel as my own and identify with? The simple fact of the matter was that I found the proletariat beautiful.

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Käthe Kollwitz14

German artist 1867–1945

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“The artist is usually a child of his times, especially if his formative years fell in the period of early socialism.”

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Käthe Kollwitz14

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