In Woman in the Lap of Death (1920/1921), Käthe Kollwitz gives form to a truth many trauma survivors know too well: when life shatters, even the comfort of surrender can feel like a temptation. In this haunting lithograph, a weary woman collapses into the lap of a skeletal figure, death itself, not in terror, but in resignation. Her body folds into his with a chilling, defiant, and heartbreakingly human intimacy.

Kollwitz created this moving piece in the aftermath of personal and political devastation, after losing her son in World War I and witnessing the suffering of Germany’s working class. Her art doesn’t just depict death, it dialogues with it. Woman in the Lap of Death is not about giving up, but about the unbearable weight of holding on. The woman’s collapse isn’t weakness; it’s a portrayal of the exhaustion that comes from enduring relentless grief and trauma.

What makes this image so powerful is its lack of dramatization. There is no struggle, no grand gesture, only stillness. In that stillness, Kollwitz captures the muted despair of those who have been asked to endure too much for too long. For trauma survivors, this visual can mirror the quiet battles fought in silence, the invisible labour of continuing on.

And yet, as with much of Kollwitz’s work, there is compassion. Death does not take the woman violently; it receives her. The piece invites us to consider how art can hold pain without turning away, how it can offer not solutions, but solidarity. In a world that demands resilience, Kollwitz dares to validate collapse and, in doing so, reminds us that every act of survival begins with being seen.

Feature Image Credit: Self-Portrait 1934 Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867–1945) Germany, 20th century lithograph https://unsplash.com/photos/4ZSnuoLYtII

Body Image Credit: Woman in the Lap of Death 1920/1921, Käthe Kollwitz https://www.kollwitz.de/en/woman-in-the-lap-of-death-kn-165