PAULA MODERSOHN-BECKER
The author of one of the first nude self-portraits by a female artist in Art History.
Self-portrait on the 6th wedding anniversary (1906). © Paula Modersohn-Becker-Stiftung. Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen.
The first time I learned about Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876 - 1907) was, funny enough, on the internet.
I remember stopping abruptly when I read her name simply because we share the same one. Little did I know I was about to discover a hidden treasure. Once I started looking through her works, I couldn’t tear my eyes off them; becoming one of my favorite artists. Years later, in 2019, I was lucky enough to see some of her pieces in an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Though I’m very sad to say Paula Modersohn-Becker was never even mentioned in any of the classes I attended when I was in college (I studied Art History). But that is a story for another day.
The artist, born in Dresden (Germany) in 1876, was part of a well-off, cultured family, which was why she could study art from a young age and, thus, develop her artistic skills. We must know, anyway, that the institutions that welcomed her were those “suitable” for women (as we already know, they were not allowed to pursue their vocations the way men were). She traveled to England when she was sixteen to improve her English and later carried on her studies in Bremen, Berlin, and Paris.
Now considered a pioneer of modernism, she was one of the most important painters of early german expressionism. Her works are full of female presence, landscapes, and still lifes. In the brief fourteen years of her career, she made approximately 750 paintings and more than a thousand drawings. Regarding her style, Modersohn-Becker was influenced by artists like Picasso, Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin, amongst others. Another influence you can see in her works is the known Fayum portraits.
Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace (1906). © Paula Modersohn-Becker.
Sadly, Modersohn-Becker wasn’t given enough time to have an entire career. She died when she was 31 due to complications after giving birth to her daughter Mathilde. She is an example of the way women have been perceived and treated throughout history: with the weight on their shoulders of knowing that it is expected of them to be devoted wives and loving mothers, whether they want to be or not, who must do what they’re told and behave as they’re supposed to.
In her work Self-portrait on the 6th wedding anniversary (1906), the artist looks directly at us; her stare is firm but gentle. The background is decorated with pastel hues, and the female figure almost becomes a part of it. A white sheet covers her waist, and the upper half of her body is naked, except for a long necklace. She is embracing her stomach with her hands in a protective way, giving the impression she may be pregnant (even though we know she wasn’t at the time she made the piece). This is one of the first nude self-portraits by a female artist in Art History.
In 1897, she and her family visited the village of Worpswede for the first time, which was the home of a group of artists who would gather and paint the landscape. She later joined the group, where she met her future husband, Otto Modersohn, who was also an artist. The truth was her creative mind couldn’t stop running and, after some years, she got tired of the meadows, the swinging of the branches, and the streams and decided it was the bodies and the souls she was interested in. The complexity of the forms she’d seen ruling the academic criteria was not what called her; that’s why she turned them into something simpler but found a new way of communicating her perception of the human essence. Too avant-garde for the group, she left Worpswede in 1906, hoping to have a long career ahead.
She had a unique way of painting eyes. These almond-shaped, sort-of-tender eyes are so deep and express so much but, simultaneously, seem to hide things from us. As if she’s daring us to look a little bit more attentively, for a little longer.
Self-portrait before a green background with blue iris (1900-1907) © Paula-Modersohn-Becker-Stiftung. Kunsthalle Bremen - Der Kunstverein in Bremen.
Her female approach to german expressionism shows her figures are powerful yet delicate, using primary but violent colors, as we see in Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace (1906). Firm greens and blues, deep reds and oranges, pastel yellows and pinks, dark browns and jet blacks grant some works an almost eerie appearance.
In her personal life, she tried to escape the ties that came with marriage. She felt stuck, unable to experience life and develop her career the way she wanted. Trapped in a cage, she dreamed of breaking free.
Paula Modersohn-Becker showed us a glimpse inside her private universe: how she viewed the world outside and, most importantly, how she viewed herself. With a new, rare and simplified way of depicting the human form, she was not that interested in the concept of beauty everybody knew; it was another kind that she chose: one that focused on the expression within the artist and how the artist can transfer it onto the canvas.
What happened to her was what has happened to many artists: people valued their work once they were no longer there to witness it. How devastating it must be for an artist to feel forgotten or, worse, never seen.
Paula Becker was forced to leave unexpectedly, and we were left with all of those “what would’ve happened if”. We know that without acknowledging these erased artists' existence, we only learn half the story.
Detail of the work Self-portrait before a green background with blue iris (1900-1907) © Paula-Modersohn-Becker-Stiftung. Kunsthalle Bremen - Der Kunstverein in Bremen.
“How happy I would be if I could give figurative expression to the unconscious feeling that often murmurs so softly and sweetly within me.”
- Paula Modersohn-Becker
