Paula Modersohn-Becker

Edited by Jay A. Clarke and Jill Lloyd-Peppiatt This exhibition catalog considers the work of a pioneering artist who subverted conventions in her bold depictions of the nude, self-portraits, and still-lifes. An iconoclast in her own time, Modersohn-Becker is today considered an icon of modernity.Throughout her career, Paula Modersohn-Becker boldly experimented with styles while steadfastly pursuing the truth of everyday life and her own female experience. This monograph looks at the entire spectrum of her work—figure drawings, still-lifes, self-portraiture, landscape, nudes, and portraits of young girls and old women—to illustrate the evolution of an artist reacting to seismic cultural change at the turn of the nineteenth century. Whether she was embracing or subverting the principles of realism, naturalism, impressionism, symbolism, or expressionism, Modersohn-Becker remained interested in issues of identity, peeling away outer layers to uncover what she understood as the true essence of life. This book features numerous examples of Modersohn-Becker’s striking and relatively unknown drawings of men, women, and children facing poverty, as well as her highly original figure paintings and nudes—including her unprecedented nude self-portraits. Accompanying the first museum exhibition of Modersohn-Becker’s work in the United States, it reveals the deeply personal and authentic work of an artist who resolutely forged her own path. Hardcover208 pagesPrestel, 20249.25 x 11.25 x .75 inchesISBN 9783791377346Neue Galerie Exhibition Catalogue

Paula Modersohn-Becker Exhibition Catalogue

Exhibition notecard for "Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich bin Ich / I am Me"June 6 — September 9, 2024Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907)Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in Her Raised Left Hand, 19071 notecard and envelope5.75 x 8.75 inches

Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich bin Ich / I am Me Exhibition Notecard [Single Card]

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907)Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in Her Raised Left Hand, 1907 Poster for the exhibition Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich bin Ich / I Am Me 18 x 24 inches

Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich bin Ich / I Am Me Exhibition Poster

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) Standing and Kneeling Nude Girls in Front of Poppies II, 1906

Paula Modersohn-Becker: Standing and Kneeling Nude Girls in Front of Poppies II [Postcard]

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in Her Raised Left Hand, 1907

Paula Modersohn-Becker: Self-Portrait with Two Flowers [Postcard]

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) Nude Girl with Flower Vases, 1906-07

Paula Modersohn Becker: Nude Girl with Flower Vases [Postcard]

By Marie DarrieussecqTranslated by Penny Hueston Lire magazine: Best Book on Art 2016"A biography full of life force, drafted in the present with grace...Dazzling!"―Elle"A magnetic portrait of a woman, taking shape through the seemingly simple, but always so beautiful, writing of Marie Darrieussecq."―Vogue"Darrieussecq’s writing is poetic and stylized; the tableau unfolds sometimes in one-sentence paragraphs and one-word sentences, and always in the present tense. Clearly written for a broad audience, this book will renew appreciation for a deserving artist who’s too often reduced to a mere passing mention in art-history textbooks."―Publishers Weekly The short, obscure, and prolific life of the German expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907), a significant figure in modernism. First published in France in 2016, Being Here Is Everything traces the short, obscure, and prolific life of the German expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907). In a brief career, cut short by her death from an embolism at the age of thirty-one, shortly after she gave birth to a child, Modersohn-Becker trained in Germany, traveled often to Paris, developed close friendships with the sculptor Clara Westhoff and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and became one of her generation's preeminent artists, helping introduce modernity to the twentieth century alongside such other painters as Picasso and Matisse. Marie Darrieussecq's triumphant and illuminating biography at once revives Modersohn-Becker's reputation as a significant figure in modernism and sheds light on the extreme difficulty women have faced in attaining recognition and establishing artistic careers. Paperback160 pagesSemiotext(e), 20175.4 x 0.4 x 8 inchesISBN 9781635900088Artist Monographs, Biography, Painter, Women Artists

Being Here Is Everything: The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker

By Sue Hubbard“A triumph of literary and artistic understanding, a tour de force: Masterly, moving and beautifully written.” —Fay WeldonA dazzling novel about groundbreaking artist, Paula Modersohn-Becker—a brilliant early expressionist who toiled under the shadow of her lover Rainer Maria RilkeGirl in White is the extraordinary story of the German expressionist painter Paula Modershohn-Becker (1876-1907), told from the fictionalized perspective of her daughter, Mathilde.Written with the eye of a painter and the soul of a poet this moving story is a meditation on love, loss, memory and, ultimately, hope.Paula Modersohn-Becker was a pioneer of modern art in Europe, but denounced as degenerate by the Nazis after her death. Poet and art critic Sue Hubbard draws on the artist’s diaries and paintings to bring to life her singular existence, her battle to achieve independence and recognition and her intense relationship with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and her struggle to find a balance between being a painter, wife, and mother.Not only do we discover Paula’s vibrant personality and rich legacy of Expressionist paintings, but also come to understand something of the corrupted ideologies of the Third Reich in a book that’s perfect for fans of books like Georgia by Dawn Tripp and The Age of Light by Whitney Scharer.Paperback320 pagesPushkin Press, 20235 x 7.77 inchesISBN 9781782279129Historical Fiction

Girl in White

By Eric Torgersen "It was not until I read Requiem for a Friend in Eric Torgersen's translation that I understood what a great and tragic poem it is: guilt-ridden, impassioned, intimate, a sublimated howl. Torgersen's version is one of those rare complete successes in the absolutely impossible art of translation."—Galway Kinnell"A brilliant and valuable study, written with grace and passion, Torgesen's work could scarcely be bettered, both for the delight of reading it provides and for the insights into the lives it exposes."—Choice"As a guide through the intersecting lives and relevant work of Rilke, Modersohn-Becker, and Westhoff, this study has qualitatively and in its focus no parallel in either English or German."—Reinhold Heller, University of ChicagoIn 1908, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote Requiem for a Friend in memory of Paula Moderson-Becker, the German painter who had profoundly affected him and who had died a year earlier. Although one of the great modern painters, Modersohn-Becker is remembered primarily as she is portrayed in Rilke's poem. Dear Friend looks at the relationship of two great artists whose often-strained friendship was extraordinarily productive for both. Paperback 276 pagesNorthwestern University Press, 20006 x 0.8 x 9 inchesISBN 9780810118195Biography, Letters, Poetry

Dear Friend: Rainer Maria Rilke and Paula Modersohn-Becker

This book was featured in our Lecture Series. Translated by Ulrich Baer from the collection edited by Rainer StammIntroduction by Jill LloydThe painter Paula Modersohn-Becker and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke were two of the most talented and original creative artists at work in early twentieth-century Europe. They enjoyed a close friendship that left in its wake a remarkable series of letters. Encompassing topics such as art, literature, and the nature of marriage, their correspondence testifies to both writers’ brilliant descriptive gifts and penetrating social intelligence. Brought together in English for the first time, the letters that Modersohn-Becker and Rilke sent to one another provide a fascinating view of everyday life during an exceptionally fertile and exciting period of cultural production.Paperback120 pagesEris Press, 20247.8 x 5.1 inchesISBN 9781916809901Biography, Correspondence, Art History

The Modersohn-Becker/Rilke Correspondence

Original Price: $15 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS By Frank LaukötterWhen Paula Modersohn-Becker’s artist friends examined her extensive estate a few weeks after her death in 1907, they were overwhelmed. Only gradually did they realize that in the painter, dead at thirty-one, they had had an outstanding artist in their midst. Today Modersohn-Becker is regarded as one of the pioneers of Expressionism.Sculptor Bernhard Hoetger was one of the few people who recognized Modersohn-Becker’s talent from an early stage. In 1920, he published a book collecting his memories of her, and they are reproduced as facsimile here. In addition to Hoetger’s writings, the book offers an essay tracing Modersohn-Becker’s life and work from a present-day perspective, together with a traditional biographical sketch and reproductions of forty of her most important works.Hardcover72 pages | 49 color platesHirmer Publishers, 20205.3 x 8 inches ISBN 9783777434896Artist Monograph, Expressionism

Paula Modersohn-Becker (Great Masters in Art)

By Shulamith Behr“This lucidly written book shows how emphatically present women were—as artists, critics, collectors, scholars, entrepreneurs, installation photographers, and more—in shaping the fortunes of Expressionism. Behr’s woman-centered account contributes to the dismantling of canonical histories of modernism.”—Barbara McCloskey, author of The Exile of George Grosz: Modernism, America, and the One World OrderWomen Artists in Expressionism explores how women negotiated the competitive world of modern art during the late Wilhelmine and early Weimar periods in Germany. Their stories challenge predominantly male-oriented narratives of Expressionism and shed light on the divergent artistic responses of women to the dramatic events of the early twentieth century.Shulamith Behr shows how the posthumous critical reception of Paula Modersohn-Becker cast her as a prime agent of the feminization of the movement, and how Käthe Kollwitz used printmaking as a vehicle for technical innovation and sociopolitical commentary. She looks at the dynamic relationship between Marianne Werefkin and Gabriele Münter, whose different paths in life led them to the Blaue Reiter, a group of Expressionist artists that included Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Behr examines Nell Walden’s role as an influential art dealer, collector, and artist, who promoted women Expressionists during the First World War, and discusses how Dutch artist Jacoba van Heemskerck’s spiritual abstraction earned her the status of an honorary German Expressionist. She demonstrates how figures such as Rosa Schapire and Johanna Ey contributed to the development of the movement as spectators, critics, and collectors of male avant-gardism.Richly illustrated, Women Artists in Expressionism is a women-centered history that reveals the importance of emancipative ideals to the shaping of modernity and the avant-garde. Hardcover304 pages | 170 color, 42 black-and-white illustrationsPrinceton University Press, 20228.25 x 10.5 inchesISBN 9780691044620 Artistic Movements, Expressionism

Women Artists in Expressionism: From Empire to Emancipation

By Uwe M. Schneede A highly illustrated critical biography of groundbreaking artist Paula Modersohn-Becker, harbinger of the modernist movement. Nineteenth-century German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) defied every convention of an artist at the time: she was a professional female artist, she painted everyday scenes of women’s life and self-portraits―including during her pregnancy―and she used a rich, earthy palette, including many pinks. In this accessible introduction to the artist, art historian Uwe M. Schneede tells the story of how Modersohn-Becker became one of the most important artists of the modern movement. Schneede conducts a thorough visual analysis of Modersohn-Becker’s paintings, examining how she painted women, including herself, in a way that had not been seen before and unpacking why her images have remained so significant. This study is paired with a revealing discussion of the artist’s short life, from her early classes at the Association of Berlin Women Artists to creating the first-known female nude self-portraits. Featuring rarely seen images from Modersohn-Becker’s archive, as well as fascinating insight into her life and work, Paula Modersohn-Becker presents a welcome opportunity to get to know this key modern artist. Hardcover 240 pages | 120 illustrations Thames & Hudson, 2023 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.3 inches‎ISBN 9780500025628Artist Monographs

Paula Modersohn-Becker: A Life in Art

Foreword by Wolf Eiermann and Lisa Felicitas MattheisText by Lisa Felicitas Mattheis, Kristina Jaspers, Marek ZydowiczHow expressionism crossed genres in pursuit of the total artwork, from Nolde to MurnauAs a revolutionary cultural movement, Expressionism endeavored to join art and life and diminish the separation between the arts. The Gesamtkunstwerk—the total artwork—became the ideal for artists. Expressionism in Art and Film traces this crossing of genre boundaries, outlining mutual influences between painting, graphics and film. Exaggerated figures, strong contrast and distorted perspective pervaded all three mediums, reflecting the tremendous angst of the early 20th century’s social upheavals. Social critique also figured centrally in the movement, in caricatured depictions of modern men and women. This volume highlights these elements of Expressionism, drawing parallels between art and film. Artists Erich Heckel, Emil Nolde, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Alexander Kanoldt, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Otto Mueller figure here, as well as directors Robert Wiene, F.W. Murnau and Ernst Lubitsch.Hardcover240 pages | 130 color imagesText in English and GermanSilvana Editoriale, 20229.5 x 1 x 11 inchesISBN 9788836650361Expressionism, Art and Film

Expressionism in Art and Film

Edited with text by Theodora Vischer Text by Tere Arcq, Andreas Beyer, Tamar Garb, Peter Geimer, Anna-Carola Krausse, Sylvie Patry, Uwe M. Schneede, Jennifer Thompson, and Hilda Trujillo. Gender interventions and formal innovations in female portraiture, through works by Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Lotte Laserstein, Frida Kahlo, Alice Neel, Marlene Dumas, Cindy Sherman, Elizabeth Peyton This superbly conceived publication looks at nine women artists whose careers were devoted primarily to portraiture, analyzing both the work they produced and the unique ways in which each artist captured her subjects’ likenesses and the spaces they inhabited. These artists represent the development of modernist art since 1870; each has made significant contributions to art history as they complicate long-held notions of the gaze and explore the relationship between the self, the subject and the artist. Close-Up examines women painters and photographers who are known primarily for self-portraiture, such as Paula Modersohn-Becker, Frida Kahlo and Cindy Sherman; it also looks at female artists who depicted the daily lives of women and children in a creative environment that was largely disinterested in such subjects, such as Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt and Lotte Laserstein. Still other women—Alice Neel, Marlene Dumas and Elizabeth Peyton—embrace familiarity completely and depict friends and family as well as famous figures in their paintings. In essays by nine different authors, these artists and their subjects are considered individually and as part of a chronology of modern portraiture, with an emphasis on the dynamics of gender. Paperback344 pages | 215 color illustrationsHatje Cantz, 2021ISBN 97837757475787.5 x 10.25 inchesWomen Artists, Painting, Photography

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