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Lot Essay
Paula Modersohn-Becker's name is strongly associated with the idealistic, nature embracing Worpswede colony north of Bremen, which she joined in 1898. She spent a significant amount of time in Paris, where she studied at the private academies of Colarossi and Julian, and attended an anatomy course at the École des Beaux Arts. The artist's activities in Paris were typical for women artists of the time. Paris attracted a large number of foreign female contemporaries who could enrol in one of the private academies. Contemporaries of Modersohn-Becker were Käthe Kollwitz, Mary Cassatt and Helene Schjerfbeck.
Modersohn-Becker executed Liegender weiblicher Akt in her studio on her return from Paris. As in the photograph of the same date which shows the artist sitting on the sofa of her studio, the strong yellow pattern dropped against the black background is very striking. It is the only adornment next to the monumental nude with her broad and heavy proportions. Becoming increasingly more simplified and monumental in style, her work of this time reflects both the influence of the antique as well as the influence of contemporary French artists, such as Maillol, van Gogh and Gauguin.
Probably due to personal interest as well as accessability as a woman artist, images of women - the female nude, mother and child groups, adolescent girls and portraits of women - are important themes in the artist's oeuvre. Although the reclining nude is painted in a traditional odalisque style, she imbues this with the naturalness of the female as life-giver and nurturer, for which she is so well known.
Paris impressed Modersohn-Becker and the stimulation of both old and new art in museums and galleries helped her develop her own style. In 1903 she wrote from Paris to Otto Modersohn how impressed she was with Rembrandt's paintings; yet old and yellow with age, so rough and 'coarse grained' in texture, which could also be found in old marble and sandstone statuary. "I must learn to express the gentle vibration of things: the intrinsically rough texture. I must also find this expression in drawings; in the way in which I draw my nudes here in Paris, more original and at the same time sensitively observed" (Diary, 20 Feb. 1903, quoted in G. Perry, Paula Modersohn-Becker, London, 1979, p. 53f.).
Modersohn-Becker executed Liegender weiblicher Akt in her studio on her return from Paris. As in the photograph of the same date which shows the artist sitting on the sofa of her studio, the strong yellow pattern dropped against the black background is very striking. It is the only adornment next to the monumental nude with her broad and heavy proportions. Becoming increasingly more simplified and monumental in style, her work of this time reflects both the influence of the antique as well as the influence of contemporary French artists, such as Maillol, van Gogh and Gauguin.
Probably due to personal interest as well as accessability as a woman artist, images of women - the female nude, mother and child groups, adolescent girls and portraits of women - are important themes in the artist's oeuvre. Although the reclining nude is painted in a traditional odalisque style, she imbues this with the naturalness of the female as life-giver and nurturer, for which she is so well known.
Paris impressed Modersohn-Becker and the stimulation of both old and new art in museums and galleries helped her develop her own style. In 1903 she wrote from Paris to Otto Modersohn how impressed she was with Rembrandt's paintings; yet old and yellow with age, so rough and 'coarse grained' in texture, which could also be found in old marble and sandstone statuary. "I must learn to express the gentle vibration of things: the intrinsically rough texture. I must also find this expression in drawings; in the way in which I draw my nudes here in Paris, more original and at the same time sensitively observed" (Diary, 20 Feb. 1903, quoted in G. Perry, Paula Modersohn-Becker, London, 1979, p. 53f.).