Paula Modersohn-Becker: A Life in Art

(Hardback)

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An accessible introduction to the life and work of this trailblazing pioneer of early modernism, published to coincide with a major exhibition at the Royal Academy, London. Paula Modersohn-Becker is today hailed as one of the great pioneers of modernism. When she died in 1907 at the age of just 31, she had completed more than 700 paintings and 1,000 drawings and prints. Despite selling only a few paintings during her lifetime, her distinct style, daring subject matter and perseverance in overcoming barriers to women left a significant artistic mark on the brief epoch between the old and the new, and paved the way for the German avant-garde. Uwe M. Schneede, one of the foremost experts on Modersohn-Becker's work, shows how the artist translated her life's experiences into her own, very distinctive, pictorial language. He focuses in particular on her time in Paris, where she absorbed the luminous palette and expressive brushwork of the French avantgarde, and which so strongly impacted her ambitions and artistic trajectory. Schneede's lively narrative is supported by some 120 illustrations, and peppered throughout with quotations from Modersohn's letters and diaries.

Reviews

'Schneedes book is an excellent guide to the artist and the development of her oeuvre' - WhyNow

Author Bio

Uwe M. Schneede was a professor of art history at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich until 1991 and Director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle from 1991 to 2006. He is the author of many books, including Edvard Munch: Early Masterpieces and 1914: The Avant-Garde Goes to War.