The painter Paula Modersohn-Becker and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke first met in 1900 at the Worpswede artists' colony-a focal point of the kind of artistic innovations that were set to transform twentieth-century European culture. Modersohn-Becker and Rilke went on to enjoy an intense friendship over a period that saw both of them having to confront personal and financial challenges as they pursued their artistic vocations. This friendship was cut short by Modersohn-Becker's tragically early death in 1907, but it left in its wake a remarkable series of letters.
As fascinating and evocative when discussing the nature of married life and the difficulty of furnishing one's home as they are when exploring the expressive possibilities of art and poetry, the letters exchanged by Modersohn-Becker and Rilke are a testament to both correspondents' exceptional descriptive gifts and penetrating social intelligence.
Brought together in English for the first time here and introduced by an illuminating essay by the art historian Jill Lloyd, The Modersohn-Becker/Rilke Correspondence provides a fascinating view of everyday life during an exceptionally fertile and exciting period of cultural production. Praise for Paula Modersohn-Becker:
"Among the painters, along with Picasso and Matisse, who created modernism in the first years of the twentieth century."-John Colapinto, The New Yorker
"[A] brilliant early twentieth century painter."-Sheila Heti, The Brooklyn RailPraise for Rainer Maria Rilke:
"Rilke unquestionably is one of the essential poets who wrote in German during the twentieth century."
-Harold Bloom
"The poetry he left behind is priceless."-John Banville, The New York Review of Books
