Paula Modersohn-Becker was born in Dresden on February 8, 1876. Two years later her family moved to Bremen. In 1892 she received her first drawing lessons during a seven-month stay with one of her father's sisters in England. Upon her parent's request, Modersohn-Becker attended a class for female teacher's from 1883 to 1885. At the same time the Bremen artist Bernhardt Wiegant taught her drawing and painting.
In 1895 the "Kunsthalle Bremen" exhibited works by artists from Worpswede for the first time. In 1896 Paula Modersohn-Becker attended a course by the "Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen", which was followed by a one-and-a half-year apprenticeship. At first she focused on drawing lessons with portrait and nude studies, later she entered Jeanne Bauck's painting class.
In the summer of 1897 Modersohn-Becker visited Worpswede for the first time and became acquainted with Fritz Mackensen, who taught her henceforth. In the fall of 1898 she finally moved to Worpswede. Between 1900 and 1907 Paula Modersohn-Becker traveled to Paris several times. During prolonged so journs in Paris, she studied at the "Colarossi" academy and the "École des Beaux-Arts", where she socialized with the artistic Avant-garde. Paula was especially influenced by Cézanne and Gauguin, and was one of the first artists in Germany to recognize their immense importance.
In 1901 she married Otto Modersohn, whom she had met in Worpswede in 1897. In November 1907 their daughter was born. The same month Paula Modersohn-Becker died of a heart attack. Emanating from the expressive natural lyrism of the turn of the century, the artist arrived with her pictures of rural women and children, in self-portraits and still lives which were expressive, large-sized and color-expressive painting, which made her a precursor of German Expressionism.