Paula Modersohn-Becker
Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in Her Raised Left Hand (1907)
Selected by Janis Staggs, curatorial director of Neue Galerie in New York City
As told to Adam Schrader
In what is believed to be her last self-portrait, the trailblazing German Expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker self-actualized a state of peace found after reconciling with her estranged husband, Otto Modersohn, and finding balance with the ideas of motherhood and her career.
Born in 1876 in Dresden as the third of seven children, Paula was sent in 1892 to live with her aunt in London where she studied drawing at St. John’s Wood Art School. She returned to Germany in 1893 to study at a teacher’s seminary while privately receiving painting lessons. Her parents later let her set up her studio in an extension of their home.
Paula furthered her studies through the late 1890s and settled briefly at the Worpswede artists’ colony where she befriended sculptor Clara Westhoff and was encouraged by German painter Fritz Mackensen to draw nudes for the first time; she filled her sketchbooks with figure studies. She’s since been credited as being the first known woman painter to paint a nude self-portrait, and the first to depict herself nude and pregnant.
In 1900, as women were still banned from the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Paula took lessons at the Academie Colarossi in the French capital, and became impressed by the works of impressionist Paul Cezanne. She and Westhoff returned to Worpswede and started getting close to Otto after the passing of his first wife, Helene, from complications from pregnancy.
Westhoff married the acclaimed Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke in April 1901 and Modersohn-Becker wed Modersohn the following month, at the age of 25, becoming stepmother to his daughter, Elsbeth Modersohn. But she struggled with the idea of whether to become the mother herself and the couple didn’t consummate their marriage for four years.
Part of what people believe is that there is a fear Modersohn had that he would lose another wife. So, I think this is where this fascination with motherhood and maternal imagery in her work comes from.
Paula Becker-Modersohn, 1895. Photo: ullstein bild via Getty Images.
In another self-portrait, you can see the sadness in Becker-Modersohn’s eyes. She’s dressed in very similar attire in the way Westhoff, her best friend, is seen in a portrait Becker-Modersohn painted of her. But she felt that, for Westhoff, the decision to marry Rilke and to become a mother meant that she gave up part of her own identity. She gave up her drive and potential to be an artist for the sake of a man. So, she was trying to avoid that outcome.
In February 1906, Paula moved to Paris to further her career away from her husband and is estranged from him for about six months. Still, around this time, she paints another stunning portrait of herself nude and pregnant—even though she was not yet so. Modersohn visited her that October, and they stayed together there briefly before returning to Germany.
She knew she wanted to be an artist. That was the thing she put first and foremost in her life. It wasn’t that she and Otto didn’t love each other. But she struggled with how to reconcile being a wife, a mother, and an artist at this time. She was very lucky that he was willing to send her money while they were estranged, allowing her to continue her studies.
Paula does give birth, to Mathilde on November 2, 1907, and it was a difficult pregnancy. At that time, women were advised to stay in bed. It was decided on November 20 that they were going to hold a party and she was going to get out of bed for the first time. The family prepared a celebration with flowers and a cake, and she fixed her hair. Her husband and brother helped her get out of bed and, as she’s walking over to hold her daughter, all of a sudden, she said, “what a pity” and died. She was 31 years old. It is quite a brutal story.
From the context of the picture, it appears to be from late summer or early fall of that year, possibly very late in her pregnancy. Unlike the one from May 1906 when she’s not pregnant and showing herself nude, she’s clothed, she has one hand protecting her abdomen, and she’s holding up two flowers—perhaps symbols for herself and her child. The portrait is in a three-quarters pose unlike other frontal portraits she did in the Fayum mummy portrait format.
This painting in many ways is why we did this show [“Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich Bin Ich / I Am Me“]. It was a joint acquisition with the Museum of Modern Art and after this picture was acquired, our president Ronald Lauder thought we needed to do a show because her work is terrific and I think MoMA was thrilled.
As for the final self-portrait, she takes great care in painting herself. She gives herself a little more space and is using more impasto style texture, to the point that she’s worked the surface of the paint to emphasize her cheeks, her lips and eyelids. She also emphasizes her hands, which don’t even appear in some of her portraits. And I think here, the interaction with the viewer is more direct—more intense.
I’ve come to believe this painting represents her reaching her goal, her desire to become herself, that thing she said to Rilke that “what is the point of being here” and questioning the point of existence if you’re not going to achieve what you’re capable of. Ultimately, she came to accept that it was possible to be all three and to be successful and to feel fulfilled.
“Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich Bin Ich / I Am Me” is on view at Neue Galerie, 1048 5th Ave, New York, through September 9.
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