every two months, one Thursday per month | 17.00 

In April 2023, the popular interactive guided tour format “Slow Art” was reintroduced. This series of mediations, already tested by the Kollwitz Museum, aims to decelerate the museum visit. Every two months, one Thursday per month at 5 p.m., visitors are invited to take a closer look at a few selected works in our current special exhibition.

The slow, independent viewing of art is the focus of Slow Art. Through an unbiased look – at first without information – and the subsequent conversation, a new perspective on the works of art opens up to the visitor.

Duration: ca 60 minutes

Number of participants: min. 3 persons

Costs: reduced entrance fee plus 3 euros participation fee, free of charge for members of the Association of Friends

Registration requested via e-mail to bildung@kaethe-kollwitz.de

Upcoming date:

• 6 September 2026

12 am – 3 pm

Drop-in offer
from 8 to 99 years
Registration possible on location from 11 am

Entrance fee on KollwitzSunday: 4 €
Participation included in the entrance fee

The museum invites you to a creative printing workshop!

Even adults are allowed here!

Upcoming dates: 

6 September Silhouettes: Cut & Print! Upcycling materials from exhibition stand construction

4 October Our message! Designing posters using screen printing

1 November Collagraphy. Building up rather than taking away in relief printing

6 December Printed and celebrated! Designing cards using mixed media

KollwitzSunday

On the first Sunday of every month, the museum opens its doors at a special price of 4 euros. The entrance fee also includes participation in the print workshop.

Children and young people under the age of 18 as well as holders of an authorisation card (formerly berlinpass), members of the Berlin City Guide Association, representatives of the press and members of ICOM continue to enjoy free admission on KollwitzSunday.

Next dates in 2026:

• 6 September
• 4 October
• 1 November
• 6 December

Public guided tour as part of Kollwitz Sunday

Public guided tour as part of Kollwitz Sunday | 3 pm
in German language
approx. 60 minutes
Participation included in the special admission price for Kollwitz Sunday.
Number of participants minimum three persons, maximum 20 persons

Meeting point in the foyer, no pre-booking necessary.

Upcoming date:

• 6 September

Admission € 4
Participation in the programmes included in the admission price.

Kollwitz Sunday – more than just a visit to the museum!

Every first Sunday of the month, the Käthe Kollwitz Museum invites you to a special experience: explore the collection for a special price of just 4 euros, join an exciting guided tour and immerse yourself in the fascinating world of printmaking!
In our open print workshop, you can try out various artistic printing techniques – no prior experience required. During our guided tour, you’ll also learn fascinating insights into the life and work of Käthe Kollwitz.
Join us – be inspired and get creative yourself!

The programmes:

Kollwitz Sunday was initiated to maintain the popular format of the open print workshop even after the free Museum Sunday was cancelled. The positive response from many interested museum visitors has reinforced our decision.

We hope that the reduced admission price of 4 euros will continue to facilitate low-threshold access to our museum for everyone. Children and young people under the age of 18, as well as holders of a valid pass (formerly the BerlinPass), members of the Association of Berlin City Guides, members of the press and members of ICOM will continue to enjoy free admission on Kollwitz Sunday.

Dates, can also be booked individually:

4 July 2026, 3.00–4.30 p.m.
1 August 2026, 3.00–4.30 p.m.
5 September 2026, 3.00–4.30 p.m.

Limited number of participants:
Prior registration required at: bildung@kaethe-kollwitz.de

Costs: Participation: 10,- Euro plus reduced admission

Guidance: Katja Schöppe Carstensen, Art historian and Cultural geragogue

Show presentation

Public show presentation

You will have the opportunity to experience the printing press in action and thus familiarise yourself with the artistic technique of lithography and be shown exactly how lithography is done during a demonstration.

Sunday, March 15, 2026 at 11.30 (Printing Arts Day)

Saturday, 7 November 2026, 11.30 (Graphic Design Weekend)

Duration: circa 60 minutes

10,00 € Participation fee and reduced admission

Guidance: Diogo deCalle

Number of participants: maximal 15 people

Registration required via phone 030 – 882 52 10 or via e-mail bildung@kaethe-kollwitz.de

In addition to the two public dates, you also have the option of booking a private demonstration.

Appointment by arrangement
Duration: circa 90 minutes
Number of participants: minimum 5 people, maximum 15 people
Costs: 400 euros, Payment in advance

We look forward to receiving your enquiry!

e-mail: bildung@kaethe-kollwitz.de
phone: 030 – 882 52 10

Exhibition talks in DGS

Dates:
12 April 2026, 3 p.m.

The special exhibition “Käthe Kollwitz and the Theatre” offers the first comprehensive exploration of Käthe Kollwitz’s passion for the theatre and its influence on her work. It also highlights her family’s close ties to the stage during a formative period in Berlin’s theatrical history.

17 October 2026, 3 p.m.

With the special exhibition ‘Ida Gerhardi – And Everything Danced’, Berlin’s Käthe Kollwitz Museum is shining a spotlight on an extraordinary modernist artist whose significance has long been underestimated. Around 40 paintings and drawings from Gerhardi’s years in Paris around 1905 reveal a painter who moved with confidence through the vibrant metropolis and was one of the first female artists to explore Parisian nightlife and the world of dance as subjects.

Registration is appreciated: bildung@kaethe-kollwitz.de

Participation included in the museum admission price.

Ida Gerhardi – “And Everything Danced”
29 August to 1 November 2026
Opening: Saturday, 29 August 2026, 5 pm
Slow Art: 3 September 2026, 5 pm with museum director Dr Josephine Gabler 
Lecture: 8 October 2026, 6 pm with Heike Steinweg, photographer and actress, and Dr Annegret Rittmann, editor of the collection of letters

The painter Ida Gerhardi (1862–1927) is one of those female artists whose achievements and significance in her own time have now been almost forgotten. After studying at the School for Women Artists in Munich, Gerhardi lived in Paris from 1891 onwards, where she made a name for herself as a German artist. She built a reputation as a portraitist and networker, who also arranged contacts and exhibition opportunities for fellow artists in Paris and elsewhere. She was acquainted with prominent art collectors such as Karl Ernst Osthaus, was a member of the Berlin Secession and the German Artists’ Association, and a co-founder of the German Lyceum Club. In 1913, Ida Gerhardi was forced to leave Paris due to ill health and return to her hometown of Lüdenscheid. She was only able to continue her artistic work to a limited extent.

The exhibition at the Kollwitz Museum focuses on Ida Gerhardi’s time in Paris, highlighting in particular her expressive dance paintings and depictions of Parisian nightlife, as well as her striking self-portraits. Gerhardi strolled through Paris alone and visited dance halls on her own – both of which were highly unusual for a woman at the time. From 1903 onwards, she began to explore these scenes artistically. In art history, she is thus a pioneer, as no woman before her had painted these subjects.

During her wanderings through the bars and dive bars in 1904, whilst on her two-month stay in Paris, Käthe Kollwitz had been accompanied by the art dealer Wilhelm Uhde (1874–1947). During this time, a deep affection grew between the two artists, which developed into a friendship maintained across the distance between them. The two women also found common ground artistically in the theme of self-portraits. It is therefore a priority for the Kollwitz Museum in Berlin to honour this fellow artist of Käthe Kollwitz in an exhibition.

As early as six years ago, whilst the museum was still at its former location, attempts were made to organise an exhibition entitled ‘Ida Gerhardi – Und alles tanzte’. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic thwarted two attempts to stage this exhibition at the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Berlin. It was only after the move to the Theaterbau and the completion of all construction work that this long-planned exhibition could finally be realised.

It is the artist’s first exhibition in Berlin in 25 years. Back then, the now-defunct Verborgene Museum had dedicated itself to this forgotten body of work. On display are around 40 paintings and drawings by Ida Gerhardi, predominantly from her time in Paris around 1905.

An accompanying booklet is being published (approx. 70 pages, numerous illustrations, approx. €10).

Käthe Schmidt as Gänseliesel at the costume festival organised by the School of Women Artists in Munich, 1889,
Kollwitz Estate, Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Cologne

Happy birthday, Käthe!

To mark Käthe Kollwitz’s birthday, we are commemorating one of the most significant female artists of the 20th century – and, at the same time, her roots in Königsberg.

As a small token to mark her birthday, the first 100 visitors tomorrow will receive, along with their admission ticket, a piece of original Königs Marzipan from the Charlottenburg-based manufacturer Wald Königsberger Marzipan – a sweet memento of the city where Käthe Kollwitz’s life began.

On 8 July 1867, Käthe Kollwitz was born as Käthe Schmidt in Königsberg. The East Prussian city was far more than just the place of her childhood: it was here that her personality, her sense of social responsibility and her artistic view of the world were shaped. She grew up in a liberal, cosmopolitan family home where education, art and social engagement were highly valued. Her talent for drawing was recognised and nurtured from an early age – at a time when access to academic art education was still largely denied to women. The intellectual atmosphere of Königsberg at that time and of her family home laid the foundations for a body of work that continues to move people around the world to this day.

In her memoirs, her childhood friend Helene Bloch described just how full of life, spirited and curious the young Käthe was:

“I have a very lovely and vivid memory from her teenage years at her parents’ house, where I was often invited to so-called ‘balls’. We would dance the whole evening through. She danced with passion and was constantly falling in love all over again. Once we spent an entire evening looking at illustrations in the ‘Kladderadsch’, and it was wonderful for me to see her laughing so heartily at Oberländer’s humorous drawings. – The relationship between the children and their parents was wonderful. The children had complete freedom; they were allowed to spend their pocket money – which was also intended for their clothes – manage their money as they wished – and yet respect and obedience towards their parents were the highest law. I was always impressed by how, in the family, everything intellectual took precedence and how money was always made available for theatre and literature, whatever the circumstances.”

And Helene Bloch goes on to report:

“At a later ball, to the amazement and delight of everyone present, she appeared as a ‘Bacchante’, singing and dancing with incredible passion, a wreath in her hair.”

These recollections give a profound insight into the Schmidt household. It was an environment that had a lasting influence on Käthe Kollwitz and laid the foundations for her later work.