Strongly influenced by socialist movements, Käthe Kollwitz often depicted peasants and urban workers in her images. She applied to the Munich Women’s Art School in 1888; there, she developed skills as a draftswoman. Many of her works were influenced by Gerhart Hauptmann’s The Weavers or inspired by the Peasant War of 1525. Her association with Expressionist artists inspired her to take on a more Expressionist approach, diverging from her former Naturalist style. Her pacifist and socialist convictions heavily influenced her works and prompted her to become more political after World War I. In 1933, the Nazi party removed Kollwitz from her faculty position at the Akademie der Künste in addition to taking down her work from public exhibition.
