What Käthe Kollwitz, Jacob Lawrence, and Francisco Goya Teach Us About Making Meaningful Art Today

Many artists quietly carry the belief that their work is “small.”

That it’s personal, private, maybe even indulgent. That real change happens elsewhere: through politics, power, or people louder and braver than us.

History tells a very different story.

Again and again, artists have shaped the emotional reality of their time. Not always by trying to be revolutionary, but by telling the truth of what they saw, felt, and lived through with clarity and courage.

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Here are three artists whose work didn’t just reflect history, but helped shape it, and what their choices can teach you about making meaningful work today. I hope you see your art matters more now than ever.

Käthe Kollwitz: Choosing Truth Over Comfort (Germany, 1867–1945)

Käthe Kollwitz did not paint battles.
She painted what came after.

After her son Peter was killed in World War I, Kollwitz’s work shifted dramatically. She turned toward grief, loss, and the emotional devastation left behind, not as isolated tragedy, but as a shared human experience.

Her print series War (1921–1922) focuses on mothers, parents, and families hunched over, overcome with sorrow. There is no heroism here. No triumphant sacrifice. Just the unbearable cost of violence carried by those left behind.

At the time, Germany was deeply invested in nationalist narratives that framed war as noble and necessary. Kollwitz’s work disrupted that story. Her images circulated widely as prints, making them accessible to working-class audiences rather than confined to elite collectors. They became visual touchstones for Germany’s growing pacifist movement after World War I.

Later, the Nazi regime condemned her work as “degenerate.” She was forced to resign from the Prussian Academy of Arts. But by then, her images had already altered public consciousness. She had given form to grief that many felt but were discouraged from naming.

What Artists Can Learn from Kollwitz

Kollwitz teaches us that honesty can be radical, even when it’s quiet.

She didn’t chase novelty or trends. She didn’t dilute her message to make it more palatable. She trusted that telling the emotional truth, especially the parts society wanted to hide, was enough.

For contemporary artists, this raises important questions:

• Where am I softening my work to make it easier to accept?
  
• What emotional truth am I circling but not fully committing to?
  
• Am I willing to let my work be uncomfortable if it’s honest?

Your work does not need to be political in a loud or literal way to have impact. It becomes powerful when it refuses to lie.

Jacob Lawrence: Claiming the Right to Tell the Story (United States, 1917–2000)

When Jacob Lawrence began The Migration Series in 1940, the story he was telling was not considered “mainstream American history.”

The Great Migration was when millions of Black Americans fled the Jim Crow South in search of safety, work, and opportunity. This period shaped modern cities, labor systems, and culture. Yet it was rarely centered in museums, textbooks, or national narratives.

Lawrence changed that.

Composed of 60 small panels painted in bold, flattened color, The Migration Series tells this story collectively rather than heroically. Trains crowded with families. Factories filled with laborers. Segregated housing. Violence. Hope. Disappointment. Resilience.

Each image is paired with simple, declarative text:
“They were very poor.”
“They were forced to leave because of unfair treatment.”
“They arrived in great numbers.”

Lawrence was only 23 years old when the series was completed. It was immediately recognized as groundbreaking. Major museums acquired it, and it permanently shifted how the Great Migration was discussed, studied, and remembered.

Lawrence didn’t ask permission to tell this story. He assumed it mattered, and painted accordingly.

What Artists Can Learn from Lawrence

Lawrence reminds us that your lived experience is not a niche, but instead a lens.

He didn’t wait for validation before committing to his subject. He didn’t feel the need to universalize his story to justify it. He trusted that specificity would carry meaning.

How can you apply this to your own practice today? Here are a few examples:

• You do not need to explain why your story matters before telling it.
  
• You do not need to make your work palatable to an imagined gatekeeper.
  
• You are allowed to document, witness, and claim space.

If you’ve ever thought, “Who am I to make work about this?” Lawrence’s answer is clear: you are the person who lived it. That is enough.

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Now, let’s meet our next artist.

Francisco Goya: Refusing to Make Violence Beautiful (Spain, 1746–1828)

Portrait of Francisco de Goya by Vicente López

Francisco Goya lived through war, political repression, and public terror. What sets him apart is not that he depicted violence, but that he refused to justify it.

In The Disasters of War (created between 1810–1820), Goya produced a series of etchings showing executions, famine, mutilation, and despair during the Peninsular War. There are no clear heroes. No moral reassurance. Just human suffering, again and again.

These images were so politically dangerous that they were not published during Goya’s lifetime. But when they finally were, they reshaped how war could be represented.

Goya broke from centuries of tradition that glorified conquest and sacrifice. Instead, he exposed the machinery of violence, showing what it does to bodies, families, and societies.

His influence is visible today in protest art, documentary photography, and any work that prioritizes truth over spectacle.

What Artists Can Learn from Goya

Goya teaches us that aesthetic skill does not require moral neutrality.

He did not distance himself emotionally from his subject. He did not hide behind technique. He used his mastery to clarify, not obscure, what was happening.

I’m curious:

• Where might beauty be muting the truth in your work?
  
• Are you using skill to impress, or to communicate?
  
• What happens when you let your work take a stance, not with slogans, but with clarity?
  

Art does not have to offer solutions. Sometimes its role is to make denial impossible.

Making Work That Matters—Now

None of these artists were chasing relevance. They were responding honestly to the world in front of them.

Their work mattered because it:

• Told the truth when silence was expected
  
• Centered experiences others overlooked
  
• Trusted emotional clarity over approval

That is still available to you.

You do not need to predict history to participate in it. You only need to take your work seriously enough to stop shrinking it.

Art becomes influential not when it tries to be important, but when it refuses to be dishonest.

And that begins with believing that your way of seeing is worth showing.

Thank you so much for watching.  I’m curious if one of these artists resonates with you, or if you have another name to share. These certainly are not the only artists who have had cultural impact. Tell me more in the comments below.

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References & Further Reading

Käthe Kollwitz

• Prelinger, Elizabeth. Käthe Kollwitz. Yale University Press, 1992.
• The British Museum: Käthe Kollwitz collection essays
• MoMA: Artist biography and print holdings
• Deutsches Historisches Museum: Kollwitz and German pacifism
• Kollwitz Museum

Jacob Lawrence

• Museum of Modern Art (MoMA): The Migration Series overview
• Phillips Collection: The Migration Series history
• Nesbett, Peter T., and Michelle DuBois. Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence. University of Washington Press, 2000.
• Smithsonian American Art Museum: Artist biography

Francisco Goya

• Hughes, Robert. Goya. Knopf, 2003.
• The British Museum: The Disasters of War
• Museo del Prado: Goya and the Peninsular War essays
• Licht, Fred. Goya: The Origins of the Modern Temper in Art. Universe Books