Bust of a Working Woman in a Blue Shawl (Brustbild einer Arbeiterfrau mit blauem Tuch)

The influence of Käthe Kollwitz’s training as a painter can be sensed in the brushy texture of the early color lithograph Bust of a Working Woman in a Blue Shawl. The print also reflects her sympathy with the progressive labor movement, which sought better working and living conditions for impoverished Germans. Although she is perhaps best known for her woodcuts, the ease and directness of lithography appealed to her, as well. It was, as she noted, “a technique which hardly seems like one, it is so easy. It seized only the essential.”