Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) was a groundbreaking Expressionist, who revolutionized the way female bodies were treated by Western art.
Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) was a groundbreaking Expressionist, who revolutionized the way female bodies were treated by Western art.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan. This is Womanica.
This month, we’re talking about visionaries.
Before today’s visionary, female artists didn’t paint themselves nude, let alone nude and pregnant. A groundbreaking Expressionist, she reimagined the way female bodies, in all their forms, were treated by Western art.
Let’s talk about Paula Modersohn-Becker.
Paula Becker was born on February 8, 1876. She was the third child of Mathilde and Carl Woldemar, a strict -- but artistically inclined -- couple who lived in Dresden, Germany. From an early age, Paula’s parents were invested in her creative pursuits. Her mother, at one point, took on a boarder to help pay for art lessons.
When Paula was 16, she was sent to stay with her aunt and uncle in London. Though she returned to Germany just a few months later, her time abroad -- and in classes at St. John’s Wood Art School -- sparked a passion for painting that would burn for the rest of her life.
Back home, Paula’s parents were anxious for her to learn a trade. She was unmarried, and they worried about her ability to support herself as a single woman. So Paula agreed to a two-year training program for governesses. She completed the course, but spent much of that time taking art classes and communing with local artists.
Paula never made it as a governess. Instead, she convinced her father, Carl, to send her to art school in Berlin. The agreement was for two months. Paula stayed for two years.
On breaks, she would visit an artist colony in Worpswede, in Northern Germany. And when she finished at the Drawing and Painting School of the Association of Women Artists in 1898, she moved to the colony, permanently.
At Worpswede, Paula found inspiration in the surrounding, natural landscape, far from industrial Germany. But what caught her attention most acutely were women in nature. One etching of hers from the period features a blind woman walking in the woods. She is bent over, but calm, her detailed hands outstretched.
One of Paula’s friends, the poet Rainer Rilke wrote that Paula depicted, “The things and objects of Worpswede… which nobody else had seen or could paint in that way.”
At Worpswede, Paula found something else, too: a husband. Otto Modersohn was one of the colony’s founders, and the two married in 1901. But aside from providing Paula financial security, the marriage seems to have been a rather unhappy one.
Paula spent much of their married life shuttling between Worpswede and Paris. In diary entries, she wrote of loneliness, of mourning the idea that she had a soulmate. And she implied that it took years before she and Otto consummated their marriage.
Paula was happiest when she took solo trips to France, where she painted alongside fellow expressionists like Paul Cezanne [Say-zan] and Paul Gaugin [Go-gone]. In 1906, she fled to Paris, effectively leaving Otto.
She wrote, "I am becoming something - I am living the most intensely happy time of my life."
That year, Paula produced some 80 paintings, focusing on still lifes, and portraits. She also painted her first nude self-portrait. Her career, it seemed, was finally taking off. Otto, desperate to make the marriage work, came to Paris, too. And in March of 1907, Paula became pregnant.
Paula followed Otto back to Worpswede, and for a time, fell into a creative rut. She wrote in letters to her sister that she didn’t want to be known as someone who spent her days changing diapers.
But in her third trimester, Paula found a new source of inspiration: her own, changing body. In 1907, she painted Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in Her Raised Left Hand, in which she was visibly pregnant. To her, it was a symbol: that motherhood did not mean the end of her art.
That painting, tragically, would be one of her last. On November 2nd, Paula gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Mathilde after her own mother. A few days after birth, Paula started complaining about pain in her legs. Her doctor prescribed bed rest. Just 18 days after giving birth, Paula died from a postpartum embolism. She was 31 years old.
Paula’s dream, of being known as an artist, of “becoming something,” became a reality in her absence. She’s now recognized as having revolutionized the way women’s bodies were treated in Western art, departing from the idealized, eroticized nude. Her legacy can be seen in the work of artists like Frida Kahlo, Cindy Sherman and Jenny Holzer.
In 1927, Paula became the first woman artist to have a museum dedicated entirely to her work. You can still visit it today.
All month, we’re honoring incredible, artistic visionaries.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. And to Alesandra Tejeda for curating this month’s theme.
Talk to you tomorrow!