Black crayon on Ingres paper, NT 475
Alongside individual sheets, there is also a series of six works for Simplicissimus which were published under the title »Images of Misery« as full-page prints. The idea to create this cycle of drawings for the magazine was something new and came from Käthe Kollwitz herself.
The themes of these folios refer to working-class life and address unemployment, homelessness, alcoholism, infant mortality, unwanted pregnancy and suicide. Käthe Kollwitz was confronted with the plight of the urban proletariat from 1891 onwards, when she moved to the working-class district of Prenzlauer Berg in North Berlin with her husband Dr Karl Kollwitz, who was a panel doctor.