A pioneering artist who subverted conventions in her depictions of the nude self-portraits
and still-lives. 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.
