MODERSOHN-BECKER, PAULA

ne Becker born Feb. 8, 1876, Dresden, Ger. died Nov. 30, 1907, Worpswede German painter, one of those who introduced into German art the style of such late 19th-century French Postimpressionist painters as Pierre Bonnard, douard Vuillard, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Czanne. Becker was interested in art from her youth, and she began to learn drawing in 1888, when her family moved to Bremen. Sent to England to complete her education, she attended St. John's Wood School of Art, where she received her first rigorous, coeducational training. Upon her return to Germany, she attended (189698) the traditional School for Women Artists. In 1898, as a pupil of Fritz Mackenson, she became a member of the group of regional artists known as the Worpswede school, an artists' colony near Bremen. There she formed a friendship with the sculptor Clara Westhoff, who later married Rainer Maria Rilke. Together they traveled to Paris, where Becker first encountered the work of the Gauguin circle and the Nabis group and other French artists who inspired her. In 1901 she married Otto Modersohn, a widower and father. She spent three more periods of study in Paris, leaving her husband to settle there in 1906. He followed her there, and she returned to Worpswede with him in 1907. She died shortly after giving birth to her only child. Modersohn-Becker's early works reflect her academic training and are meticulously naturalistic. During a certain period, her works bear some resemblance to those of Kthe Kollwitz. Modersohn-Becker's style continued to evolve, however, and her mature paintings, such as the Self-Portrait with a Camellia (1907), combine a lyrical naturalism with the broad areas of simplified colour characteristic of Gauguin and Czanne. Since her painting is more concerned with the expression of her inner feelings than with the accurate portrayal of reality, she is frequently called an Expressionist.