Modersohn-Becker, Paula

orig. Paula Becker

(born Feb. 8, 1876, Dresden, Ger.—died Nov. 30, 1907, Worpswede) German painter. After studying art in London and Paris, she became one of the first artists to introduce French Post-Impressionism into German art. While her early work is meticulously naturalistic, her later paintings, such as Self-Portrait with a Camellia (1907), combine a lyrical naturalism with the broad areas of simplified colour characteristic of Paul Gauguin and Paul C. 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. She died at 31 while giving birth to her first child.

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