Comprehensive Retrospective of Paula Modersohn-Becker’s lifework

The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt will be showing a comprehensive retrospective of the complete works of Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) from 8 October 2021 to 6 February 2022. With 116 paintings and drawings, including some that are now considered art-historical icons, the exhibition presents an up-to-date view of the oeuvre of the German artist of Classical Modernism. Divided into concise series and pictorial motifs, the exhibition focuses on her extraordinary painting style and her artistic methods. The retrospective also shows how Modersohn-Becker, as an early representative of the avant-garde, defied social and artistic norms and thus anticipated central tendencies of modernism.

Paula Modersohn-Becker, born Minna Hermine Paula Becker in Dresden on 8 February 1876, is one of the most important representatives of early Expressionism. Her multifaceted oeuvre comprises around 740 paintings and about 1500 other works, in which portraits and self-portraits, depictions of children and mothers with children, women and farmers, nudes, landscapes from Worpswede and Paris as well as still lifes represent a special focus. Modersohn-Becker, who died of an embolism at the age of 31, was unsuccessful with her art throughout her life, yet the first travelling exhibitions of her works were held in Germany only a few years after her death.