Paula Modersohn-Becker was a German Expressionist painter and draftswoman of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She is noted for the many self-portraits, including nudes. She is considered one of the most important representatives of early expressionism, producing more than 700 paintings and over 1000 drawings during her active painting life. She is recognized both as the first known woman painter to paint nude self-portraits, and the first woman to have a museum devoted exclusively to her art. Additionally, she is believed to be the first woman artist to depict herself pregnant.
Paintings by Paula Modersohn-Becker
Self-Portrait with Hat and Veil (1906)
Self-Portrait with Hat and Veil is a painting by the German Expression painter Paula Modersohn-Becker. It was painted between 1906-07. It has been described as an impenetrable, secret painting: "the artist stands in front of a draped window, her face both in shadow and covered by a veil, doubly concealing the backlit figure from public viewing. Only the deep V-shape of her garment suggests exposure of any kind, and even there the flower held just at the breast both hints at and denies a fuller view."
Portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke (1906)
The Portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke is an oil and tempera on cardboard painting by Paula Modersohn-Becker, from 1906. It is held in the Ludwig Roselius Museum, in Bremen.
The Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker had been close friends since around 1901. In 1902, however, he didn't mentioned her, nor his own wife, Clara Westhoff, in his art book Worpswede über die Künstlerkolonie , about an artists colony.
Self-Portrait at 6th Wedding Anniversary (1906)
Self-portrait at 6th wedding anniversary (German: Selbstbildnis am 6. Hochzeitstag), also known as Self-portrait on the sixth wedding anniversary and Self-portrait on the sixth anniversary of marriage, is a painting by the German expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker during her stay in Paris in 1906.
In February 1906, Modersohn-Becker moved to Paris from Worpswede, a small town near near Bremen, Germany. She had decided to leave her husband and Worpswede forever, and devote herself entirely to art.
Q138819294 (1904)
Kinder zwischen Birkenstämmen. Öl auf Pappe, auf Holz aufgezogen 69,5 x 51 cm Unten rechts rot datiert '04'. Werkverzeichnis: Busch/Werner 498; Pauli 152 a ("Kinder unter Birken")
Self-portrait (1897)
Selbstbildnis, frontal
Girl with flower wreath (1901)
Paula Modersohn-Becker, Mädchen mit Blumenkranz, um 1901, Öl auf Lindenholz
Q50117978 (1901)
Girl with Flower Wreath in Her Hair (Mädchen mit Blütenkranz im Haar) by Paula Modersohn-Becker, c. 1901, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie
Man lying beneath a Blossoming Tree (1903)
personal depiction · landscape · tree · man · hike · pause · sun · nature experience · fruit tree · cherry tree · apple tree · sustenance · life · shadow · reduction · perspective · area · movement (of the body) · rhythm · geometry · proportion · expressionism · sleep · adult man · lying figure · trees (+ flowers, blossom, blossoming) · spring landscape; landscape symbolizing spring (the four seasons of the year) · resting · cultivated land