King was starting to think about being an artist , though this was really a second choice . But art was something she could do with minimal resources , so long as she could support herself . King was influenced both by mediaeval sculpture and by Expressionist sculpture , an important part of German avant-garde art , and particularly by the work of the wood-carver , Ernst Barlach ( 1870 – 1938 ) . The Nazis considered such art to be decadent ( '' Entartete Kunst '' ) and later attempted to suppress it . King went to see the artist Käthe Kollwitz ( 1867 – 1945 ) , whose work she admired . Kollwitz ’ advice to King about a career in art was " Do n’t do it if you can help it . It is so difficult " . Nevertheless , King did go on . She said : " I have n’t regretted it . I agree with her , it ’s difficult . " King found a teacher , Hermann Nonnenmacher ( 1892 – 1988 ) , a wood-carver influenced by Ernst Barlach , who taught her the basic skills of wood-carving and modelling in clay . King worked with him until she was accepted into the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts in 1937 , when she was 21 , one of only three non-Aryan students there ( all women ) . She was forced to leave about a year later , not long before Kristallnacht ( 9 – 10 November 1938 ) . While she was there , she supported herself by undertaking commercial work ( such as carving architectural ornaments ) for the sculptor , Otto Hitzberger ( 1878 – 1964 ) , who was on the staff there
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Inge King