Autumn/Winter 2022

“I am becoming
somebody”
Paula Modersohn-Becker at the Royal Academy of Art
By Margie MacKinnon
Four pioneering female artists of the avantgarde
movement in Germany are the focus of a
new exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Art.
Opening in November 2022, ‘Making Modernism’
features the work of Gabriele Münter, Käthe
Kollwitz, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Marianne
Werefkin. All four were working in Germany in
the early 1900s, exploring themes of identity,
representation and belonging. The Modernist
movement in art began at the end of the
nineteenth century. It was a rejection of traditional
approaches to art, notably the realistic depiction of
subjects, in favour of experimentation with form
and colour, and a leaning towards abstraction.
Expressionism, which was an early manifestation
of Modernism, originated in Northern Europe and
was particularly popular in Germany.
With the exception of Kollwitz, who abandoned
painting altogether after 1890, in favour of etching
and, later, sculpture and woodcuts, these early
Expressionist painters created works of startling
simplicity and intense colours, with forms defined
by dark outlines. Seeking to convey emotions and
the responses that events arouse within a person,
Expressionism is characterised by the use of
vivid colours, and forms that have been reduced
to their purest essence. Münter described her
pictures as “moments of life … instantaneous
visual experiences, generally noted very rapidly
and spontaneously.” Werefkin was influenced by
Van Gogh, Gauguin and Edvard Munch, as well as
the ideas of the Nabis painters (such as Edouard
Vuillard) whose works emphasised the flatness of
the painting surface through the use of simplified
areas of colour.
Within this group of accomplished artists,
Paula Modersohn-Becker stands out, partly
because of the subject matter of her works and
her unapologetic unidealised portraits of girls
and women, and partly because she managed to
develop her artistic vision and create a lasting
legacy, despite dying at the age of only 31.
Left: Paula Modersohn-Becker, Mother with Child on
her Arm, Nude II, autumn 1906. Oil on canvas,
80 x 59 cm. Museum Ostwall im Dortmunder U.
(Photo: Jürgen Spiler, Dortmund).
Autumn / Winter 2022 • Restoration Conversations 79