Seated Female Nude (Self-Portrait?)c. 1899
Although Paula Modersohn-Becker died in 1907, just as the Expressionist groups in Dresden and Munich were forming, the themes of her work prefigure the movement. More about this work
About this work
Although Paula Modersohn-Becker died in 1907, just as the Expressionist groups in Dresden and Munich were forming, the themes of her work prefigure the movement. This likely self-portrait exhibits her desire to convey not the idealized appearance of the female body but rather its fundamental essence, stripped of all the world’s trappings. She distilled the human body into flattened forms—achieved by erasing and blending the charcoal—and abbreviated the delineation of the feet, hands, and face. The sitter’s piercing stare invites the viewer to move beyond the body as flesh and blood toward her emotional or spiritual state.
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Charcoal
- Burnt willow or vine. It smudges and wipes away easily, which made it the natural tool for working out a composition.
Paula Modersohn-Becker
German, 1876–1907
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1973.35
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
