Through a unique collection of twenty-four paintings, drawings and engravings, the exhibition offers an insight into the works of the German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker. Her paintings made their first appearance at the junction between two fundamentally differing generations of painters: the late impressionists and the expressionists. Cézanne and Gauguin together with the Parisian Nabi group number among her sources of inspiration. Though the artist’s wilful and avant-garde style was considered irritating or disturbing in her lifetime, it is considered today revolutionary and futuristic.
The works present an overall view of the artist’s favoured themes: landscapes, portraits and still lifes. In addition, ten further works by her artist friends and colleagues are shown thanks to which Modersohn-Becker’s personality and sphere can better be understood. Among these is a head and shoulders portrait by the artist Clara Westhoff, who was a sculptor in Auguste Rodin’s studio and the wife of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
Paula Becker, who in 1901 married the painter Otto Modersohn, was a member of the Worpswede artist colony, considered today as one of the most important in the world. The collective life and work of this colony was due to the distance of their members from academic art as well as an idealisation of nature and rural life. The presence of works by Fritz Overbeck, Fritz Mackensen and Otto Modersohn honour the memory of the founding fathers of the colony.
The exhibition is the first monograph in Luxembourg dedicated to the works of this exceptional artist.
In collaboration with the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover
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