Paula Modersohn-Becker, Still-life with Goldfish Bowl, 1906
(Picture: Antje Zeis-Loi, Medienzentrum Wuppertal)As women artists in early 20th-century Germany, the four protagonists of this show, Käthe Kollwitz, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Gabriele Münter and Marianne Werefkin, were at a disadvantage. Though privileged, they were denied access to art academies. So, they would grab opportunities for private tuition where they could, but also seize the chance to portray friends, family and that most available of models, themselves.
They were often expected to conform to the traditional roles of wife and mother. And imperial Germany hated that French-inspired pollution of national culture, modernism. Kaiser Wilhelm II infamously said that Kollwitz’s art had lowered “itself into the gutter”.
