--- title: 5 Things to Know About Artist Paula Modersohn-Becker description: Paula Modersohn-Becker, who helped introduce modernism to the world is celebrated by a Google Doodle on her 142nd birthday canonical: https://time.com/5138852/paula-modersohn-becker-google-doodle/ author: Laignee Barron article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-08T02:55:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2024-01-24T11:37:50.000Z og:title: Google Doodle Celebrates Painter Paula Modersohn-Becker og:description: Here's what you should know about the first woman to paint a nude self-portrait og:url: https://time.com/5138852/paula-modersohn-becker-google-doodle/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e3a3123290d392b/698926ba4ee262d374310ccb/paula-modersohn-becker_google-doodle.jpg?branch=production&width=818&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 818 og:image:height: 460 og:image:alt: paula-modersohn-becker_Google Doodle og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google Doodle Celebrates Painter Paula Modersohn-Becker twitter:description: Here's what you should know about the first woman to paint a nude self-portrait twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e3a3123290d392b/698926ba4ee262d374310ccb/paula-modersohn-becker_google-doodle.jpg?branch=production&width=818&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 5 Things to Know About Pioneering Artist Paula Modersohn-Becker > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=261c38b8-dc28-4206-adbb-74696f252fa1&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How Google Makes its Doodles [Watch (HLS stream): How Google Makes its Doodles](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/upF0qp1E.m3u8) (3:23)  _Published 2018-07-07. Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as_ by [Laignee Barron](https://time.com/author/laignee-barron/) ## Laignee Barron Updated: Jan 24, 2024 11:37 AM UTCPublished: Feb 8, 2018 2:55 AM UTC  Google's Doodle celebrates artist Paula Modersohn-Becker on what would have been her 142nd birthday on Feb. 8, 2018. Google's Doodle celebrates artist Paula Modersohn-Becker on what would have been her 142nd birthday on Feb. 8, 2018. Golden Cosmos/Google Doodle by [Laignee Barron](https://time.com/author/laignee-barron/) ## Laignee Barron Updated: Jan 24, 2024 11:37 AM UTCPublished: Feb 8, 2018 2:55 AM UTC On Paula Modersohn-Becker’s 142nd birthday, Google is celebrating the under-appreciated German artist [with a Google Doodle](https://www.google.com/doodles/paula-modersohn-beckers-142nd-birthday). The [first woman](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/paula-modersohn-becker-modern-paintings-missing-piece#slide%5Fss%5F0=8) to paint a naked self-portrait didn’t care much for the traditional expectations or institutions that constrained most European women at the turn of the 20th century. Paula Modersohn-Becker’s parents wanted her[ to become a teacher](http://www.paula-modersohn-becker.com), and told her to [abandon her “egotism”](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/04/being-here-life-paula-modersohn-becker-marie-darrieussecq-review) in order to carry out her wifely duties; instead, she became one of the era’s most prolific artists, and helped give rise to the modernist movement alongside Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.  Werbe-Plakat für "Paula Modersohn-Becker-Museum", Marktplatz, Bremen, Deutschland, Europa, Reise, BB, DIG; P.-Nr.: 731/2013, 12.10.2013; (Photo by Peter Bischoff/Getty Images) Peter Bischoff—Getty Images Google’s Doodle for Modersohn-Becker was created by [Golden Cosmos](http://www.golden-cosmos.com/about/), a Berlin-based art duo. The illustration features Modersohn-Becker at work, brush and flowers in hand, with four completed works behind her. ## 5 Things You Should Know About Paula Modersohn-Becker: --- > “” --- 1\. **Modersohn-Becker** [**sold just three**](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/04/being-here-life-paula-modersohn-becker-marie-darrieussecq-review) **paintings**, but she pursued her work with a ferocity fueled by a sense that she had “lost” the first two decades of her life. 2\. At the age of 18, **Modersohn-Becker defied her parents to join an artist colony in Worpswede**, in northern Germany. There, she met her future husband, the older, respected artist Otto Modersohn. 3\. Eager to learn more about modern art, Modersohn-Becker soon after moved to Paris, and encouraged Modersohn to join her. The two got engaged, at which point her family intervened and [**sent Modersohn-Becker**](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/04/being-here-life-paula-modersohn-becker-marie-darrieussecq-review) **to a cooking school** in preparation for her coming marriage. But Modersohn-Becker refused to put aside her ambitions and paint brushes, and boldly declared she “[was going to become somebody](https://books.google.com.hk/books?id=d2k7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA80&lpg=PA80&dq=was+going+to+%22become+somebody%22+paula+Modersohn-Becker&source=bl&ots=dZ5YrI61yQ&sig=jK2-F7kmf5gAct4c0-6qdr2M9Ms&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhh-SPn5XZAhVGXrwKHcWICkgQ6AEITjAN#v=onepage&q=was%20going%20to%20%22become%20somebody%22%20paula%20Modersohn-Becker&f=false)“. Her works often featured regular women, frequently painted nude, as they slept, breastfed and gardened. 4\. In 1906 alone, the prolific artist painted 80 pictures. **Modersohn-Becker died at the age of 31** the following year of an embolism, [18 days after](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/arts/design/paula-modersohn-becker-and-her-thwarted-ambitions.html) giving birth to her daughter. 5\. The literal fruits of her labor — **Modersohn-Becker painted pumpkins, cherries and lemons** — were commemorated by her friend, the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, in his [ode to her](http://www.nupress.northwestern.edu/content/dear-friend), “Requiem for a Friend.” ## Transcript >> The Doodle team was able to meet Ira Glass from This American Life, and he was just meeting us for fun. I guess, I'm not even sure why he was here, but we talked about potentially collaborating and they thought that it'd be fun to collaborate with us on Valentine's Day, so I took the lead on this project. >> We do Valentine's Day pretty much every year, and we've done your typical like lovebirds and, you know, flowers and things like that. But Ira and his team are awesome. >> They were able to pull stories that they have collected over the years, they've recorded new stories for us, and they're all about love in all different respects of the word. They sent us maybe 8 or 10 stories and they're all really fun and really sweet. >> The stories run the [ unk ]. There is a story about middle school love. >> I was in the cafeteria, just got on a drink of root beer and she walks up to me. >> There is a story about a new bride who's in doubt that she made a mistake. >> My husband, me and I, we're just so worried, his face I could tell. I said, " Where he could be ," you know, and I-- and I called the police because I thought he got lost or something happened. >> When I first got the audio from Ira, my co- worker and I listened to it together and we wrote down bullet points of where we wanted to have a little drawing come up. >> One of my favorite stories, it involves middle schoolers. We're titling it, " Puppy Love" so true to the title, I just-- I just drew everyone as a dog. >> Each stories are-- containing a little candy heart. >> And when you click on it, the heart will flip, the audio will play and you will also see the images that we've drawn to accompany the phrases. So, now we are all going to brainstorms together because we need the creative side and we also need the technical side to tell us what is possible and what isn't possible. For this one, it's a pretty conservative on the interactive side, because we didn't want to overshadow the audio. When I first started, they were no engineers on the team, we only did static doodles, but since then, we've started doing more animated stuff, more interactive work, and for that we needed a dedicated team. >> Some of our most like ambitious to those have come from engineers that are just incredibly talented and spare similar time for our projects. >> Sometimes the illustrators will come up with an idea that is way too wacky and just not possible yet. The technology hasn't been invented, but sometimes we're too conservative and it's great to have the engineers there to tell us that we can actually be way wackier with our ideas. The relationship with my engineer on this was to just keep my files size at a reasonable capacity, I was getting a little bit ambitious with how many frames I wanted to draw and my engineers said, " Hey, you need to double it ." >> We tried to do as many doodles as we possibly can. We're a pretty small team, relative to how many audiences are out there [ unk ], but yeah, we-- you never know what you're gonna get. 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