Friday 28 July 2017

Paula Modersohn-Becker - part 1


Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) spent most of her childhood in Bremen, Germany, and decided to become a painter at a young age. After her education at a private painting and drawing school in Berlin, she continued her studies from 1898 at the artist’s colony Worpswede with Fritz Mackensen. In the village north Bremen she also met her future husband, the painter Otto Modersohn (1865-1943).
In addition to numerous paintings, impressionistic studies of the Worpswede moorland and birch tree landscape emerged during this period. These studies already show Modersohn-Becker’s preference for a strictly reduced picture composition and its departure from deep-illusion.
After a few years in the narrow circle of Worpswede painters, she travelled to Paris for the first time in 1900. There she encountered the works of the French avant-garde, who confirmed her in her search for new forms of expression. By 1907, three more stays in Paris followed. From 1903, she increasingly served the still-life to clarify formal questions – the influence of Paul Cézanne’s sill-lifes becomes apparent.
The human form is very much at the centre of Modersohn-Becker’s work; children, old women, and Worpsweder peasants inspired her to undertake portraiture.
Only after she died at an early age, her extensive work was seen and she was recognised as being among the pioneers of the modern style and the first woman to paint a full-length nude self-portrait.

This is part 1 of a 5-part post on the works of Paula Modersohn-Becker:

1896 Self-Portrait Semi-nude with Amber Necklace II
oil on canvas 61.1 x 50 cm
KunstmuseumBasel

1896 Self-Portrait Semi-nude with Amber Necklace
photo study

1897 Girl with Tiger Lilies
oil on cardboard 39.3 x 48 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1897 Portrait of a Girl in Landscape
oil on cardboard 44.5 x 49 cm
Private Collection

1897 Self-Portrait
gouache 24.5 x 26.5 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1897 Self-Portrait
gouache 42 x 32 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany


1897 Self-Portrait
pastel 45.8 x 30.8 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1897-98 Portrait of an Old Woman in Profile
oil on cardboard 66 x 45 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen

1898 Peasant Woman with Child at Breast
charcoal and red chalk 80 x 46 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1898 Portrait of a Woman
charcoal and graphite on wove paper 34.4 x 49.1 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1898 Self-Portrait
tempera? on paper 28.2 x 23 cm
Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany

1899-1902c Seated Old Woman
etching on green paper 19 x 14.5 cm
de Young/Legion of Honour Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA

1898 Study for "Seated Old Woman"
40.3 x 26 cm
1898-99 Peasant Woman with Fork
indian ink, pastel and graphite 44.5 x 74.5 cm
Private Collection

1898-99 Portrait of a Peasant Woman
charcoal on cream wove paper 46.7 x 65.4 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1898c Portrait of an Old Woman
oil on cardboard 67.9 x 48.6 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen

1898c Portrait of a Woman with Poppies
oil on cardboard 57 x 46 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1899 Birch Tree in a Landscape
oil on composite board 55.4 x 42.1 cm
Harvard Art Museums
© 2017 President and Fellows of Harvard College

1899 Chalet
etching and aquatint in green-black on wove paper 14.3 x 11.2 cm ( plate )
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1899 Landscape with Marsh Channel
oil on cardboard 46 x 73.5 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1899 Sand Dune in Weyerberg
oil on cardboard 55 x 74 cm
Neue Pinakothek - Bayerische Staatgemäldsammlungen, Munich, Germany

1899 Seated Female Nude
charcoal 103 x 68 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1899 Standing Female Nude to the Right
charcoal 169 x 80 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1899 Standing Male Nude to the Left
charcoal 189.5 x 84.5 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1899-1902c Seated Old Woman
etching on green paper 19 x 14.5 cm
de Young/Legion of Honour Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA

1899-1902c Two Farmer's Girls
etching with drypoint and roulette on cream wove paper 14 x 10 cm

1899c Old Blind Woman Sitting
charcoal 45.8 x 36.5 cm
Kunsthandel Wolfgang Werner, Bremen-Berlin, Germany

1899c Old Blind Woman Sitting
pastel 73.5 x 47 cm
Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Germany

1899c Seated Female Nude
charcoal with stumping 62.2 x 33.9 cm ( sheet )
The Ceveland Museum of Art, Ohio

1899c Standing Nude Girl, Arms Crossed Behind the Head
charcoal 124.5 x 41.5 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1900 Apple Tree against a Bright Sky
oil on pencil sketch on thin brown cardboard 42 x 54.9 cm

1900 Birch Trees in front of a Barn
oil on card 55.5 x 41.7 cm
Private Collection

1900 Don Quixote
oil on cardboard 53 x 39 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen

1900 Marsh Channel with Peat Barges
tempera on cardboard 36 x 51 cm
Private Collection

1900 Portrait of a Young Lady in Red Hat
oil on cardboard 68 x 45 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1900 Sand Pit
oil on cardboard 41 x 54 cm
 Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1900 Standing Female Nude, Against a Dark Wall
charcoal and brown chalk 59.5 x 42 cm
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

1900 Still Life with Blue and White Porcelain and Kettle
oil on cardboard 50 x 58 cm
Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hanover, Germany

1900 Worpsweder Landscape with Red House
Lower Saxony State Museum, Hanover, Germany

1900-02 Fruit Tree in Bloom
charcoal on blue laid paper 26.3 x 31.6 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1900-02 Sitting Child
drypoint on vellum 8.5 x 12 cm

1900-02 The Goose Girl
etching and aquatint printed in brown on japan paper 25.5 x 20.5 cm

1900-02 The Moor
tempera on cardboard 54.1 x 33 cm
Private Collection

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing this excellent collection of work.
    Linda Kaidan

    ReplyDelete
  2. "The first woman to" you know I always doubt these turns of phrase, there were so many British artists that do not get there due that had accomplished so much that amongst them Paula would find her a protégé.

    ReplyDelete

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