''Self-Portrait on the sixth wedding anniversary'' (German: Selbstbildnis am 6. Hochzeitstag) is a painting by the German painter
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 the ...
, one of the most important early expressionists, from the time of her stay in Paris in 1906.
Painting
''Self-Portrait on the sixth anniversary of marriage'' was painted in Paris. She had moved from
Worpswede
Worpswede (Northern Low Saxon: ''Worpsweed'') is a municipality in the Osterholz-Scharmbeck, district of Osterholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teufelsmoor, northeast of Bremen (city), Bremen. The small town itself is located n ...
near Bremen in Germany in February 1906. Modersohn-Becker had decided to leave her husband and Worpswede forever, and devote herself entirely to art. This self-portrait was painted in the spring. She is turned to the right in front of the viewer and she watches the viewer with a searching and questioning look. She has a white cloth on her hip. Her upper body is naked and on her neck she wears an amber necklace.
When Paula Modersohn-Becker painted this self-portrait, she was not pregnant, as the picture shows.
Paula Modersohn-Becker painted, during the summer of 1906 in Paris, another nude self-portrait, now in the
Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland. As far as we know, these nudes were not shown during her lifetime to outsiders, but they became known after her death in November 1907.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French ''provenir'', 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses i ...
The painting was owned by Paula Modersohn-Becker's mother in 1908. By 1916 it was owned by her daughter Tille Modersohn and loaned to
Bernhard Hoetger
Bernhard Hoetger (4 May 1874 in Dortmund – 18 July 1949 in Interlaken) was a German sculptor, painter and handicrafts artist of the Expressionist movement.
Life
Hoetger was the son of a Dortmund blacksmith, he studied sculpture in Detmold from ...
in Worpswede. In 1927, it was loaned by
Ludwig Roselius to the Paula Becker-Modersohn-Haus in
Bremen, Germany. It was purchased in 1988 and is today at the
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum
The Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum in Bremen, Germany, is the first museum in the world devoted to a female artist. Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) was one of the most important early Expressionists, and the museum features key works from each of ...
in Bremen, the first museum devoted to a
female artist
The absence of women from the canon of Western art has been a subject of inquiry and reconsideration since the early 1970s. Linda Nochlin's influential 1971 essay, " Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" examined the social and institut ...
.
Sources
* Doris Hansmann: ''Akt und nackt – Der ästhetische Aufbruch um 1900 mit Blick auf die Selbstakte von Paula Modersohn-Becker'', VDG, Weimar 2000
* Rainer Stamm: ''Paula Modersohn-Becker. Leben und Werk im Spiegel ihrer Selbstporträts'' i Rainer Stamm och Hans-Peter Wipplinger (redaktörer): ''Paula Modersohn-Becker. Pionierin der Moderne'', Hirmer Verlag, München 2010, sidorna 9–24
References
''Selbstbildnis am 6. Hochzeitstag'' av Paula Modersohn-Becker på Europeanas webbplats* [http://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20100307_OTS0035/paula-modersohn-becker-selbstportraet-am-6-hochzeitstag-in-der-kunsthalle-krems-eingelangt-bild Kunsthalle Krems: ''Paula Modersohn-Becker: "Selbstporträt am 6. Hochzeitstag" in der Kunsthalle Krems eingelangt'']
{{authority control
1906 paintings
Paintings in Bremen (state)
Paintings by Paula Modersohn-Becker
Self-portraits
Nude art
Expressionist paintings
Feminist art
Arts articles needing expert attention
Human pregnancy