Seated Child (Sitzendes Kind)

September 1898

Moving to Worpswede: a pupil of Mackensen

With her parents’ consent Paula decides to go to Worpswede: it was meant to be a short holiday trip, two weeks of drawing with Fritz Mackensen — who agreed to teach her thanks to her father’s influence — and then, in the autumn, a post as a governess in Paris. But already in September 1898 Paula settles in Worpswede for a long time.

December 1899

The first trip to Paris

On the eve of 1900 Paula leaves for Paris, the centre of European art she had dreamed of since her Berlin studies; Clara Westhoff had gone there at the end of 1899, hoping to study with Auguste Rodin. In Germany salon art still dominated, while Paris was more open to the new.

December 1899

A savage review at the Bremen Kunsthalle

In December 1899 two paintings Paula exhibits at the Bremen Kunsthalle are sharply criticised in a “hysterical” attack by the art critic Arthur Fitger and have to be removed during the exhibition; he was later regarded as more outraged by the inclusion of women artists in the show than by anything in the works themselves. Meanwhile her own artistic interests were shifting noticeably toward Paris, and in Worpswede, rooted in romanticised traditions of landscape, she felt increasingly alienated.

1900

At Vollard’s: Cézanne, who struck her like a thunderstorm

Together with Clara Westhoff Paula goes to exhibitions and galleries; Clara later recalled a visit to Ambroise Vollard, where the then unknown Paul Cézanne made an indelible impression on Paula. In a letter to Clara, Paula compared the effect of his painting to a thunderstorm.

23 February 1906

Leaving Otto Modersohn

On 23 February 1906 Paula leaves Worpswede and writes in her diary that she has left Otto Modersohn. It comes as a surprise to him: in letters he begs her to return, she asks him to get used to the idea that their paths have diverged, and her family accuses her of selfishness; coming to Paris for a week in June, Otto achieves nothing and goes on supporting his wife financially.

20. November 1907

Died