Paula Modersohn-Becker
I’m just starting to learn about Paula Modersohn-Becker.
According to a few histories I have read, Becker seems to have led a hard life being a woman in a society the continuously relegated her to second class citizen status. I would argue against this maybe but I don’t know enough about Becker to confidently do so. What is clear is that she was in a loveless marraige with Otto Modersohn. They concieved a child who in turn killed her during childbirth. So a rough life. What she left behind are some great paintings by a young person who had a lot of unfulfilled promise.
Paula Modersohn-Becker, 'Kind mit Puppe am Birkenstamm (child with a doll by a birch tree)', 1902
What attracted me to Becker (I’m going to use
Otto Modersohn
Paula’s husband ‘Otto’ was also a well known painter. So far, from what I have read, this does not seem to have been the best of marriages and the consummation of it years after their wedding resulted in her death during child birth…
Here are a few of his paintings:
Current Thinking
There isn’t enough work, its so sad she didn’t make it another 40 years.
I appreciate her layering of paint. I have spent a lot of time looking at a couple of her portraits (online). To me, it looks like she is layering one layer of color on another and then coming up with some crazy color combinations that hum. Love it.