Paula Modersohn-Becker

Paula Modersohn-Becker's life and work moved between two poles: the artists' village Worpswede near Bremen and Paris. At the turn of the century, the French metropolis was a melting pot for a wide variety of artistic trends, from where the groundbreaking movements of modernism began. After months of secluded work in Worpswede Paula Modersohn-Becker was looking for the vibrant life and inspiring art experiences of Paris. Among the German artists, she was one of the first to discover the paintings of Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and the Nabis group of artists. With a sure sense for the groundbreaking innovations of these painters, she developed her own work continuously. When she died of an embolism on November 20, 1907, at the age of just 31, she was one of the pioneers of modernism in Germany. Moor grave bridge, Paula Modersohn-Becker, c. 1899, From the collection of:Kunsthalle Bremen Twilight landscape with house and branch fork (c. 1900) by Paula Modersohn-Becker Kunsthalle Bremen During her first stay in Paris in 1900 Paula Modersohn-Becker devoted herself to her Paris environment, which she painted from the private vantage point of her lodgings in the Parisian quarter of Montparnasse. The bold construction and rough reduction of the picture elements displayed in these works already indicate the geometrically planned landscapes that Paula Modersohn-Becker was to create in Worpswede after her first stay in Paris. These stand in drastic contrast to the emphatically emotional landscape paintings of the Worpswede artists and attest to the painter’s being deeply influenced by Paul Cézanne, whose art she had already encountered in Paris in 1900. Like Georges Braque and André Derain after her, she adopted Cézanne’s basic concept of emancipation from natural reproduction, translating an impression of nature into a pictorial structure with its own optical autonomy, as in the Twilight Landscape with House and Forked Branch, for example. Haystack in the evening light, Paula Modersohn-Becker, c. 1902, From the collection of:Kunsthalle Bremen Rural road with red house, Paula Modersohn-Becker, c. 1902, From the collection of:Kunsthalle Bremen »I believe that one should not think about nature too much in painting pictures. At least not during the process of conceiving the image« Nearly two-thirds of the more than 400 figural pictures made by Paula Modersohn-Becker portray children, for the most part girls. She painted children of all ages, as well as sibling pairs and, last but not least, portrayals of mothers and children – themes that may also be found in works by Vincent van Gogh, Maurice Denis, and Paul Sérusier, or the young Pablo Picasso. Paula Modersohn-Becker, however, dedicated herself to pictures of children with the utmost intensity. Girl's head in front of a window, Paula Modersohn-Becker, c. 1902, From the collection of:Kunsthalle Bremen »Keep what is deepest in you pure, those things that we have in common with children, and with the birds, and with the flowers«, she advised her friend, the painter Heinrich Vogeler, already in the spring of 1900. Children became her major theme. One reason for this was certainly that she was able to find children as models cheaply among the peasant and working-class families in Worpswede, just as she was able to do later with Italian models at the model market in Paris. But the real reason was her fascination for the world of childhood experience. Infant with the hand of the mother, Paula Modersohn-Becker, c. 1903, From the collection of:Kunsthalle Bremen Children and chickens in front of landscape, Paula Modersohn-Becker, c. 1902, From the collection of:Kunsthalle Bremen Many of her pictures show children in quiet reservation. These portrayals are always compassionate, but never sentimental. Fundamentally, she was always concerned with rendering her models in a clear manner. Standing child turned left in front of landscape, Paula Modersohn-Becker, c. 1901, From