German artist Käthe Kollwitz d 4/22/1945. Few artists were ever so committed to depicting the private struggles and suffering of the poor: hunger, unemployment, sickness, domestic violence, the oppressive burden of despair. And the hope of a better world.

A pacifist and socialist—these words were not mere ideological labels. They represented a moral and spiritual affirmation of the preciousness of human life and a spirit of resistance to all the idols of death. Banned by the Nazis, she survived until days before the armistice.