German printmaker Kaethe kollwitz is one of the earliest printmakers in the history of modern art to reflect the life and struggle of the proletariat with his own works. Lu Xun not only attached importance to her creation, but also admired her fighting spirit of standing on the side of the German proletariat and opposing Hitler's fascist dictatorship. 193 1 In the spring of, Lu Xun asked Smedley to buy the original prints of Kolwitz, and received 22 prints of Kolwitz in May and July of that year. These works have been observed and studied by students in woodcut workshops, and some of them have been published in literary journals. For example, Kolwitz's print Sacrifice was published in a magazine in memory of Rou Shi. 1935, Lu Xun, whose lung disease became more and more serious, began to compile Selected Works of Kolwitz Prints, including 7 lithographs, 14 copperplate prints and 3 black and white woodcuts. These include a self-portrait of Kolwitz in China, and two sets of paintings, The Weaver's Rebellion and The Peasant War. The preface of the album was written by Lu Xun at the request of Smedley (translated into Chinese by Mao Dun). He personally wrote a preface for the Collection of Paintings, introduced in detail the life of Kolwitz and the social impact of his works, and explained 2 1 works one by one in detail. The picture album is produced by the printing house of the Palace Museum in Beijing, and the Cologne version is finely printed on rice paper. They are quarto, bound with thread. A total of 65,438+003 copies were printed, numbered by Mr. Lu Xun himself, and only 33 copies were sold in Neishan Bookstore. In order to prevent mistakes, 1936, Lu Xun braved the heat to carry the painted pages home, mobilized the whole family to spread the painted pages on the ground one after another, arranged them in order one after another, padded each page with lining paper, put them into a book, and then sent them to the workshop for binding. This is how Lu Xun squatted on the floor, struggling to support the emerging printmaking business and working selflessly, regardless of his serious lung disease.

The Selected Prints of Kate Colwitz has a far-reaching influence on the revolutionary art movement in China. It can be said that almost all the progressive woodcut youths, both in creative thinking and expression techniques, have been well influenced by Kolwitz.