Brünjes Garten

Paula Modersohn-Becker prints bring the simple shapes, earthy colour and quiet strength of early German Expressionism into your home. In a career of barely fourteen years she painted more than 700 pictures, including the first known nude self-portraits by a woman artist. Our collection of fine art prints covers her self-portraits, portraits of children and village women, birch-tree landscapes of Worpswede and her late still lifes.

About Paula Modersohn-Becker

Paula Becker was born in Dresden on 8 February 1876, the third of seven children, and grew up in a cultured family that moved to Bremen in 1888. She had her first drawing lessons at St John's Wood Art School while staying with an aunt in London in 1892, trained as a teacher to please her father, and took private painting lessons alongside. In 1896–97 she studied in Berlin, including at the women's academy of the Berlin women artists' association.

In 1898 she joined the artists' colony at Worpswede near Bremen, first as a pupil of Fritz Mackensen, and became close friends with the sculptor Clara Westhoff and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. She soon found the colony's romantic landscape style too narrow. On her first stay in Paris, from late 1899, she studied at the Académie Colarossi and was struck by Cézanne, Gauguin and the Nabis.

In 1901 she married the Worpswede painter Otto Modersohn, a widower with a young daughter, Elsbeth. She returned to Paris in 1903, 1905 and 1906, drawing in the Louvre and meeting Rodin, Bonnard and Vuillard. In 1906 she left Worpswede to work in Paris alone, the year she painted her nude self-portraits and portraits of Rilke and Westhoff. She wrote to her sister that she was living the happiest period of her life.

She returned to Otto in 1907. Their daughter Mathilde was born on 2 November, and Paula died of a pulmonary embolism on 20 November 1907, aged 31. In 1927 the Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum in Bremen opened, the first museum devoted to a woman artist.

Style and Subjects

Modersohn-Becker moved away from the detailed realism of Worpswede toward simple, solid forms and colour used for feeling rather than accuracy, ideas she took from Cézanne and Gauguin. Her figures are broad and calm, often set flat against a plain background, with a strong, almost sculptural presence.

Her favourite subjects were peasant women and children of Worpswede, mothers with babies, girls among birch trees, and above all herself. From 1905 she turned to still life too, painting almost 50 in two years, with fruit, pottery and flowers in warm, earthy tones.

Famous Works

• Man Lying beneath a Blossoming Tree (1903), Städel Museum, Frankfurt. A figure resting under spring blossom, painted in simple flat shapes.
• Girl with a Baby Among Birch Trees (1905), Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk. A young girl holding a baby among the slim birches of Worpswede.
• Head of a Girl (1905), Städel Museum, Frankfurt. A close, quiet study of a village child.
• Self-Portrait on the 6th Wedding Anniversary (1906), Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen. Her best-known self-portrait, painted in Paris and believed to be the first picture by a woman artist showing herself pregnant.
• Self-Portrait with a Camellia Branch (1906), Museum Folkwang, Essen. A calm, mask-like self-portrait holding a sprig of camellia.
• Portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke (1906), Ludwig Roselius Museum, Bremen. Her friend the poet, painted in Paris.
• Old Peasant Woman (1907), Detroit Institute of Arts. A seated village woman painted with great dignity in her last year.

Decorating with Modersohn-Becker Prints

Modersohn-Becker's mother-and-child pictures, such as Kids with Geese and the birch-wood scenes, are gentle choices for a nursery, child's room or family living room. Their soft greens, ochres and pinks work well with natural wood, linen and other earthy materials.

Her still lifes, like Still Life with Milk Soup, suit a kitchen or dining room, and her self-portraits make a strong statement in a study, bedroom or hallway.

FAQ

What art movement was Paula Modersohn-Becker part of?

She is considered one of the most important early Expressionists in Germany. She trained in the Worpswede artists' colony but was shaped above all by French painters such as Cézanne and Gauguin.

What is Paula Modersohn-Becker's most famous painting?

Self-Portrait on the 6th Wedding Anniversary (1906), now in Bremen, is her best-known work. It is thought to be the first painting in which a woman artist showed herself pregnant.

Where can I see her paintings?

The Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum in Bremen, opened in 1927, is devoted to her work. Others are in the Städel Museum, Museum Folkwang, Kunstmuseum Basel, the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Museum of Modern Art.

How old was Paula Modersohn-Becker when she died?

She died at 31, on 20 November 1907, from a pulmonary embolism eighteen days after her daughter Mathilde was born.

What was Worpswede?

Worpswede is a village near Bremen where an artists' colony formed in the 1890s around Fritz Mackensen, Otto Modersohn, Fritz Overbeck and Heinrich Vogeler. She joined it in 1898.

Related Artists

• Otto Modersohn: her husband and fellow Worpswede painter
• Heinrich Vogeler: founding member of the Worpswede colony
• Paul Cézanne: French painter whose simplified forms deeply impressed her in Paris
• Paul Gauguin: his use of flat colour areas shaped her mature style
• Fritz Overbeck: Worpswede landscape painter and member of the colony