Modersohn-Becker, Paula

Modersohn-Becker, Paula (mō`dərzōn'-bĕk`ər), 1876–1907, German painter. After studying in London and Berlin, she was greatly influenced by her experience at Worpswede, an artists' colony where she lived from 1898 to 1900. There she met Otto Modersohn, whom she married, and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke wrote a biography of Modersohn-Becker; she painted a portrait of Rilke. At first, she painted mainly landscapes, but then she turned to portraits and still lifes.

Bibliography

See study by G. Perry (1979).

---

Modersohn-Becker, Paula

 orig. Paula Becker

Self-Portrait with a Camellia, oil on canvas by Paula …

(credit: Courtesy of the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany.)

(born Feb. 8, 1876, Dresden, Ger.—died Nov. 30, 1907, Worpswede) German painter. After studying art in London and Paris, she became one of the first artists to introduce French Post-Impressionism into German art. While her early work is meticulously naturalistic, her later paintings, such as Self-Portrait with a Camellia (1907), combine a lyrical naturalism with the broad areas of simplified colour characteristic of Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne. Since her painting is more concerned with the expression of her inner feelings than with the accurate portrayal of reality, she is frequently called an Expressionist. She died at 31 while giving birth to her first child.