Étiquette : archives

“Her effort especially with the medium woodcut corresponds to her extraordinary talent and her thorough way of studying”, Kollwitz states in the art school certificate of Elisabeth Voigt. This document of 1935 is part of the Archive of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. For several years, Elisabeth Voigt was a student of Käthe Kollwitz at the Prussian Academy of Arts, as the document reveals. As well as in the case of Sella Hasse, which I discussed in the first part of my essay series, Käthe Kollwitz’s mentoring and teaching had also a lasting effect on her student Elisabeth Voigt.

“Encounter with Käthe Kollwitz” by Sella Hasse
Academy of Arts, Berlin, Sella Hasse – Partial Estate, Signature: Hasse-Sella 12

Käthe Kollwitz, one of the most prominent female artists in Germany, spend almost ten years working as a teacher in two renowned art schools. Even though she was insecure about her teaching assignments, her work as a teacher especially empowered her female students. Two documents from the Archive of the Academy of Arts in Berlin that provide the evidence of Kollwitz’s teaching will function as a starting point to approach this topic of female empowerment through teaching.