Paula Modersohn-Becker

Paula Modersohn-Becker (February 8, 1876 – November 21, 1907) was a German painter and one of the most important representatives of early expressionism. In a brief career, cut short by an embolism at the age of 31, she created a number of groundbreaking images of great intensity. She is becoming recognized as the first female painter to paint female nudes. Using bold forays into subject matter and chromatic color choices, she and fellow-artists Picasso and Matisse introduced the world to modernism at the start of the twentieth century.

Paula Becker was born and grew up in Dresden-Friedrichstadt. She was the third child of seven children in her family. Her father Carl Woldemar Becker (January 31, 1841 Odessa – November 30, 1901, Bremen), the son of a Russian university professor for french lessons, was employed as an engineer with the German railway. Her mother, Mathilde (November 3, 1852 Lübeck – January 22, 1926 Bremen) was from an aristocratic family ″von Bültzingslöwen″, and her parents provided their children a cultured and intellectual household environment.

In 1888 the family moved from Dresden to Bremen. While visiting an maternal aunt in London, Becker received her first instruction in drawing at St John's Wood Art School. In 1893 she was introduced to works of the artists' circle of Worpswede; Otto Modersohn, Fritz Mackensen, Fritz Overbeck and Heinrich Vogeler presented their paintings in Bremen's Art Museum, Kunsthalle Bremen. In addition to her teacher's training in Bremen in 1893-1895, Becker received private instruction in painting. In 1896 she participated in a course for painting and drawing sponsored by the "Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen" (Union of Berlin Female Artists) which offered art studies to women.

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