

Making Modernism
Simple acts can be the most radical. And in turn-of-the-last-century Germany, being a woman and painting a self-portrait was about as radical as you could get. Four pairs of eyes greet you as you walk into this exhibition, mostly staring boldly, defiantly, beautifully right out of the canvases. They’re the eyes of Kathë Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter, Marianne Werefkin and Paula Modersohn-Becker, four women who knew better than most that being experimental modern painters in 1900 Germany was radical. They lived with relative creative freedom to begin with, going to artist colonies, hanging out with people like Paul Klee, shacking up with Wassily Kandinsky (Münter’s other half for a while). But their lives were blocked, hamstrung and curtailed by societal expectations of women. When you think the works look a bit ropey or unfinished, remember that women couldn’t attend art academies. When there’s a ten-year gap between paintings, remember that these women couldn’t just be artists, they had to be wives and they had to be mothers. Early portraits are bold and fierce. Then Münter and Werefkin capture interior scenes with naive, primary-colour innocence; intimate moments with lovers or private evenings with friends, all caught quickly, simply. But lovers and soirées soon get replaced with parental responsibilities and spousal obligations. Four women who knew that being experimental modern painters was radical The paintings of children in the first room here are dark and tense. Münte