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This horizontal drawing shows the head, chest, and one arm of a person in the act of drawing. Created with wide, soft black marks against sand-brown paper, the person faces our left in profile and raises their right hand, farther away from us, close to a diagonal line probably representing paper or another surface. Long hair is pulled back from a high forehead and the person has dark eyebrows, a prominent nose, high cheekbones, and their lips are pulled slightly down at the corners. A dark line between the thumb and forefinger of the raised hand represents the drawing material, held near the diagonal line. The face and hand are more detailed than the body, which is blocked in with vertical, zigzagging lines. The artist signed and dated the work in the lower right corner: “Kathe Kollwitz 1933.”

Käthe Kollwitz

Self-Portrait of Left Profile, Drawing (Selbstbildnis im Profil nachs links, zeichnend),, 1933

Not on View

Medium

charcoal on brown laid Ingres paper

Dimensions

sheet: 47.7 x 63.5 cm (18 3/4 x 25 in.)

Credit Line

Rosenwald Collection

Catalogue Raisonné

Nagel 1972, no. 1240

Accession Number

1943.3.5217

Artists / Makers

Käthe Kollwitz (artist) German, 1867 - 1945

Image Use

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Inscription

recto: lower right: Kathe Kollwitz / 1933; verso, undeciphered, in graphite: talberg Green

Marks and Labels

verso, stamp in black ink: LJR National Gallery; Alfred Rose collector stamp

Provenance

Dr. Alfred Rose; Lessing Rosenwald, Jenkintown, PA (1891-1979) (Lugt 1760b); Gift to NGA, 1943.

Associated Names

Rosenwald, Lessing Julius

Exhibition History

1978: Master Drawings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art and Promised Gifts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978, p. 126.

1992: Käthe Kollwitz, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1992, no. 98, repro.

2001: A Century of Drawing, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001-2002, no. 65.

2024: The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2024.

Bibliography

1959: Bittner, Herbert. Kaethe Kollwitz Drawings. New York, 1959: 136.

1964: Johnson, Una E. 20th Century Drawings, Part I. New York, 1964: pl. 91.

1972: Nagel, Otto. The Drawings of Kathe Kollwitz. New York: Galerie St. Etienne; Crown Publishers, 1972: 1240.

1982: Fine, Ruth E. Lessing J. Rosenwald: Tribute to a Collector. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1982, p. 244, fig. 93-95a.

1993: "Käthe Kollwitz: Face of a Survivor." Scholastic Art 24 (December 1993/January 1994): 4-5.

1994: Hobbs, Jack and Richard Salome. The Visual Experience. Worcester, 1994: 135, fig. 12-2.

1995: Alger, Sandra L.H. Games for Teaching Art. Portland, Maine, 1995: 26 (reproduced).

1995: Fichner-Rathus, Lois. Understanding Art. 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1995: fig. 3-4.

1995: Lewis, Richard and Susan I. Lewis. The Power of Art. Fort Worth, 1995: reproduced p. 67, fig. 3-4.

1996: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 111, no. 5 (October 1996): 1148 (repro.).

1999: Prentice Hall Ginn Canada. Prentice Hall Language: Resource Lines. Ontario, 1999: 187.

2000: Sayre, Henry M. A World of Art. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 2000:193, fig. 264.

2001: A Century of Drawing. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001-2002: no. 65.