Clara Westhoff (21 September 1878 in Bremen – 9 March 1954 in

Fischerhude Fischerhude is a village located next to the Wümme river in northern Germany between Bremen and Hamburg. Fischerhude is part of the municipality of Ottersberg, in the district of Verden.''Historisches Gemeindeverzeichnis für die Bundesrepublik ...

), also known as ''Clara Rilke'' or ''Clara Rilke-Westhoff'' was a pioneer German sculptor and artist. She was the wife of poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

Early life

At 17, Westhoff went to

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, where she attended a private art school. In 1898 she moved to Worpswede and learned sculpture with

Fritz Mackensen Fritz Mackensen (born 8 April 1866 in Greene, near Kreiensen, Duchy of Brunswick – 12 May 1953 in Bremen) was a German painter of the Düsseldorf school of painting and Art Nouveau. He was a friend of Otto Modersohn and Hans am Ende, an ...

. She befriended Paula Becker (later Modersohn-Becker) and Ottilie Reylaender, who were painters there. She continued her studies in 1899 with Carl Seffner and Max Klinger in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

and, in 1900, trained with Auguste Rodin in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, also attending the Académie Colarossi.(fr
Musée d'Orsay
/ref>

Personal life

In 1901 she married the poet Rainer Maria Rilke in Worpswede. Eighteen years later, she moved to

with her daughter,

Ruth Rilke Ruth (or its variants) may refer to: Places France * Château de Ruthie, castle in the commune of Aussurucq in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département of France Switzerland * Ruth, a hamlet in Cologny United States * Ruth, Alabama * Ruth, Ar ...

. Her home there with a studio later became the "Café Rilke", which still exists today.

Career

By 1925 Westhoff had turned to painting so that, in addition to her sculptural work, she created an equally substantial body of work in painting.

Death

She died in Fischerhude on 9 March 1954.

Legacy

Her work was privately owned or barely accessible to the public in various collections. With her comprehensive biography in 1986, Marina Sauer initiated a rehabilitation of the artist by freeing Clara Rilke-Westhoff from the shadowy existence of being seen only as the wife of Rilke and as a friend of

Paula Modersohn-Becker Paula Modersohn-Becker (8 February 1876 – 20 November 1907) was a German Expressionist painter of the late 19th and early 20th century. Her work is noted for its intensity and its blunt, unapologetic humanity, and for the many self-portraits th ...

. Clara Rilke-Westhoff can today be seen as a pioneer among women sculptors in Germany.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Westhoff, Clara 1878 births 1954 deaths 20th-century German sculptors 20th-century German women artists Académie Colarossi alumni Rainer Maria Rilke German women sculptors