After a long period of closure and intensive construction work, the Käthe Kollwitz Museum has been open to visitors again since 5 July. It was an eventful opening weekend that was characterised by art, exchange and the connection to the Charlottenburg neighbourhood.

The first Kollwitz Sunday after the reopening took place on Sunday, 6 July – a day that was more than just a celebration. Together with neighbours, artists and young voices from the neighbourhood, we brought life back to the museum. In addition to our regular printing workshop, this special day also offered a modelling workshop at the Kollwitz sculpture, musical contributions from the Acappella Choir of the ASB Kita am Schlosspark and an artist talk with Vanessa Cardui – and inspired people to engage with art in a variety of ways.

The new start was a complete success and whets the appetite for more – for further special exhibitions, events and shared moments in the Käthe Kollwitz Museum. It is a place for everyone who wants to experience and help shape art.

Over a year ago, on 12 January 2023, the bronze statue by sculptor Gustav Seitz (1906-1969) left its old museum location in Fasanenstraße and has been waiting in the studios of the Hermann Noack fine art foundry to take its final place in Charlottenburg Palace Park.

On 22 August the time had finally come! Just in time for the Long Night of Museums, the Berlin-based company Scherhag-Steinmetzwerkstätten expertly positioned the almost 500 kg Kollwitz sculpture on the Franconian shell limestone plinth it had previously erected.

Like its counterpart on Kollwitzplatz in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, the museum’s bronze sculpture now stands as an open-air sculpture in front of the theatre building and shows visitors the way to the museum. Jan Kollwitz, the great-grandson of Käthe Kollwitz, was also impressed by the new home of Käthe Kollwitz during his recent visit to Berlin.

Our portrait figure of Gustav Seitz is the second casting, cast in the H. Noack fine art foundry, which was donated to the museum by Gustav Seitz’s widow, Luise Seitz, for the museum opening in May 1986. The first cast stands on Kollwitzplatz, formerly Wörther Platz, opposite the former home of Käthe Kollwitz in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district. Seitz created the sculpture at the end of the 1950s on behalf of the East Berlin magistrate. Back then, it was cast by the long-established foundry Seiler und Siebert.

The seated figure is over 2 metres high and shows an aged Käthe Kollwitz with a drawing portfolio on her left and a piece of coal in her right hand.

A detailed article on the exciting history of the bronze sculpture will soon be published in our multimedia guide.

Käthe Kollwitz was a dedicated writer of letters, she kept up extensive correspondence with her numerous friends, relatives and acquaintances, but also with collectors and museum curators.

The Käthe Kollwitz Museum Berlin recently received a generous donation of more than 30 letters and letter cards from the artist to the then director of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Dr. Heinrich Becker.

Sibylle Rauscher (left) hands over the bundle of letters to Director Dr. Josephine Gabler

On behalf of Heinrich Becker’s family, Sibylle Rauscher handed over this correspondence, which had been kept for many years, to the Kollwitz Museum in Berlin. The volume covers the period from 1928 to 1944 and thus the years of Käthe Kollwitz’s greatest successes, her ostracism by the National Socialists, and her evacuation from Berlin.

Much can be learned about Käthe Kollwitz’s work from her written statements, as Heinrich Becker had obviously asked very specific questions about certain of the artist’s works. Unfortunately, the letters of the museum director to Kollwitz have not survived. They belong, like almost all the letters that Käthe Kollwitz received over decades, to the war losses.

In 1967, the Städtische Museum Bielefeld published parts of the artist’s revealing correspondence with the art historian in a slim booklet.

For example, a letter dated January 31, 1933 states:

“Dear Dr. Becker.

Thank you very much for your long detailed letter. It is always nice to know that my sheets are with you in Bielefeld. Would you please say a warm greeting to your wife for the warmth with which she lets my work affect her…..

Then the two works you ask about: “lonely man” and “mother with infant”.

You are right that the “lonely man” is a fragment. From a stone whose other half is ground off. It was the first attempt of the design of the “parents”. War time. The figure of the woman was not successful. Between woman u. Man burned a small Christmas tree. Whether the stones to the two young mothers are preserved, I can not tell you at the moment. It goes me with these two sheets in such a way that it is not completely clear to me whether they are not kitschy. I have no sure feeling about them. If the stones have been ground down, I could not give any more of the few prints that exist. In any case, Becke has none ….

With warm regards

Käthe Kollwitz”

The mentioned work “Lonely Man” can be seen until the end of October in the current intervention on the discarded versions of the war cycle. Which work Käthe Kollwitz means by “Mother with Infant” is currently still unclear.

The collection he had built up suffered considerable losses as a result of the “Degenerate Art” campaign in 1937; seven works by Käthe Kollwitz alone from the Kunsthaus’s holdings were confiscated. As early as the end of May 1945, Heinrich Becker was asked by the mayor of Bielefeld to once again take over the management of the Kunsthaus, a position he held until 1954. Thanks to the generous donation of Heinrich Becker’s family, the originals of the Kollwitz letters are now in the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Berlin.

The acquisition of further letters by the artist is part of the Kollwitz Museum’s collection policy and is being continuously pursued.

What a thrill that was! Last Thursday, the Kollwitz team and numerous members of the press were able to participate in the removal of the larger-than-life bronze sculpture by sculptor Gustav Seitz (1906-1969), which depicts Käthe Kollwitz sitting. The undertaking, which lasted several hours, started in the early hours of the morning. The team around Hermann Noack, the owner of the picture foundry of the same name, was responsible for the action. Noack also produced the second casting of the figure, which Gustav Seitz’s widow, Luise Seitz, donated to the museum for the opening in May 1986. The first casting has stood since 1960 on Kollwitzplatz opposite Käthe Kollwitz’s former home in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district.

You didn’t even want to look when a round sling was placed around the neck of the Grande Dame, who had been enthroned in the domed roof of the old museum site on Fasanenstrasse for over 35 years. With the utmost care and caution, three employees in protective gear expertly cut her into four pieces, one by one, with a cutting grinder – a necessary step in order to be able to lift the sculpture, which weighed about half a ton, out of the attic of the city villa with a crane and load it onto a transporter, because it would not have fit through the door as a whole, even if it had been cut in two. A noisy and dusty feat of strength that was closely followed and filmed by members of the press.

In the workshops of the traditional Berlin art foundry, the Kollwitz figure will be reassembled, welded and patinated. There will then be nothing left of the cuts. A new beginning in flawless beauty.

After the soon to be completed elaborate renovation of the Schlosspark at Charlottenburg Palace, the sculpture will take its intended place in the open air in front of the theater building. Like its counterpart on Kollwitzplatz, it will become an open-air sculpture that will greet walkers and museum visitors in the future in its usual serene and steady manner.