Discoverer of modernity

Kia Vahland | Süddeutsche Zeitung | 3rd November 2021

Modersohn-Becker is a case of ‘what might have been’. In her short art career, she unerringly headed for a modernist style, exploring tightly cropped close ups, daring nude self-portraits, “abstracted” landscape concepts. In 1907, just 10 years after her career started and before any commercial success, she died following childbirth. Like Picasso, her near contemporary, Modersohn-Becker pursued her own modernity, choosing “virtuoso dynamism instead of relying on balanced compositions”.