Paula Modersohn-Becker (Image in dark blue)

Paula Modersohn - Becker born February 8, 1876 in Dresden - died November 20, 1907 in Worpswede.

Paula Modersohn-Becker was one of the first women to have essentials contributed to the development of classical modern art. She is now considered a pioneer of modern painting and practiced a great Influence on the later Expressionists. Her artistic roots lay in Worpswede, an arts village northwest of Bremen.

From 1897 she took lessons with Fritz Mackensen, a essential representative of the "Artists Colony Worpswede" after having previously had attended private painting school in Berlin. In 1901 she married another representative of the "Worpswede Artists' Colony" the painter Otto Modersohn. In the first years of their collaboration they had great similarities in their style of painting.

Subjects of Paula Modersohn-Beckers were, in addition to still lifes, flowers, rural landscapes, mainly female figures and self-portraits. With their "Self-portrait" on the 6th wedding anniversary she created a key work of art history. The world's first self-act of a woman.

The "other" Paula Becker-Modersohn escaped the village narrowness many times and traveled, for the first time in 1900, the vibrant world metropolis of Paris. Here she studied the old ancient masters in the Louvre and also made contact to Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso and Auguste Rodin. Their art had great influence on her "late work". Paula Modersohn-Becker died in 1907 three weeks after the birth of their first child.

Text © Jürgen Banse, 2014