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Art of the 20th Century
Paula Modersohn-Becker
Paula Modersohn-Becker
(b Dresden, 8 Feb 1876; d Worpswede, 20 Nov 1907).
German painter. She trained in Bremen in 1892 and subsequently studied in London. From 1894 to 1896 she took a teacher’s training course at her family’s insistence but then with their permission attended the Berlin Malerinnenschule, from 1896 to 1898. In 1897 she met members of the artists’ colony in Worpswede, near Bremen, and in the autumn of 1898 she moved there, believing that in this unsophisticated farming village she could more easily achieve her artistic objective of simplicity. Her teacher was Fritz Mackensen, but her friendship with the painter Otto Modersohn (1865–1943) was more important to her artistic development. She soon, however, came to feel that further progress depended on fresh experience. On 31 December 1899 she left for Paris, where she attended the Académie Cola Rossi. In Paris she first saw paintings by Cézanne, which confirmed her own artistic aims.
