From the time Käthe Kollwitz was an enthusiastic art student, at age 18, until she made this last self-portrait, two years before she died at age 78, this artist created over one hundred images of herself. Although she hints at her intense longing for death in this faintly drawn lithograph, Kollwitz saw her self-portraits as universal statements rather than private documents, believing that "the fate of one is merged into the fate of thousands."
