Kathe Kollwitz Etchings

An assortment of kathe kollwitz etchings is available on 1stDibs. Finding the perfect modern, Expressionist or Impressionist examples of these works for your space is difficult — today, we have a vast range of variations and more on offer. These items have long been popular, with older editions for sale from the 19th Century and newer versions made as recently as the 21st Century. Adding a colorful piece of art to a room that is mostly decorated in warm neutral tones can yield a welcome change — see the kathe kollwitz etchings on 1stDibs that include elements of beige, black, brown, gray and more. These artworks have been a part of the life’s work for many artists, but the versions made by Käthe Kollwitz, Luis Camnitzer, Michael Mazur, Max Liebermann and Hermann Max Pechstein are consistently popular. The range of these distinct pieces — often created in lithograph, etching and woodcut print — can elevate any room of your home.

The average selling price for kathe kollwitz etchings we offer is $1,500, while they’re typically $650 on the low end and $12,500 for the highest priced.

Käthe Kollwitz (1867 – 1945) was a German artist who studied both painting and printmaking. However she turned exclusively to print making in the early 1890s. Influenced by fellow German artist Max Klinger, she saw the potential of the print for social commentary. Prints could be reproduced inexpensively and in multiples, allowing her to reach more people.. Her most famous art cycles, including "A Weavers' Revolt" and "Seven Woodcuts on War", depict the effects of poverty, hunger and war on the working class. Despite the realism of her early works, She is now more widely associated with German Expressionism. Kollwitz was the first woman to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts. For the next 50 years she produced dramatic, emotion-filled etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs. Initially, her husband’s working-class patients were models. But eventually Kollwitz’s subject matter became a reflection of her own experience as a witness to both World Wars. She was devastated by the suffering and loss of human life, including the loss of a son in the first war and a grandson in the second. Although Kollwitz’s wrenching subjects and virtuoso technique soon made her work popular throughout Germany and the Western world, they also generated controversy. In 1933, the Nazi government forced her to resign her position as the first female professor appointed to the Prussian Academy; soon thereafter she was forbidden to exhibit her art.

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

Find fine art prints for sale on 1stDibs today.