I had the chance to visit “Making Modernism” in February, a small but high-quality show by the Royal Academy of Art in London. This three-room exhibition explores the themes of motherhood, self-portraits and depictions of women in the public and private spheres through the eyes of Marianne von Werefkin, Käthe Kollwitz, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Gabriele Münter, four figures of early 20th century art in Germany.
Kollwitz’s drawings were certainly a standout for me. Trained at a young age, she quickly chose to specialise in graphic arts and dedicated most of her career to depicting social injustices and struggles experienced by the proletariat. While I wasn’t familiar with her work before, I was fascinated by the sculptural quality of her subjects. Instead of coming across as cold, they radiate raw, intense emotion. The tenderness of a mother gently laying next to her sleeping baby is brutally taken away by another artwork a few meters away where a child lays in her arms, dead this time. Women are omnipresent in her work – as mothers, as lovers, as individuals struggling and fighting their way through life, but always strong and multidimensional.
I also enjoyed Werefkin and Münter’s paintings, focusing on their everyday environment and the people around them, then distorting some chosen aspects of it in true Expressionist fashion. As I was looking at their art, I got frustrated that they are not exhibited more, at least in the UK – especially when knowing that some of their works are as good, if not better, than their Blue Rider’s male counterparts. After seeing Kollwitz’s drawings, I must admit I struggled to connect as much with the Expressionists’ works, but still found their bold use of colour and Werefkin’s depictions of the Ascona mountains especially fascinating.
Modersohn-Becker, the one I was most familiar with, had an entire wall full of her series of nudes – some of herself, holding oranges like the Renaissance masters; some featuring motherhood scenes. Trained in Germany and France, she developed her own approach to painting and was a pioneer in depicting the naked female body, including pregnant, without eroticising it. Her art feels intimate and almost simple in its honesty. As she said, “Strive for the greatest simplicity by means of the most intimate observation. This is greatness.”
Overall, I really enjoyed the short and intimate format of this exhibition. It did a good job at giving visitors a glimpse of each painter’s brilliance, and raised a few questions. When walking along the self-portraits section of the show, I wondered how female artists chose to represent themselves – Käthe Kollwitz was so young in those paintings, yet already had this serious look in her eyes; while Paula looked a little bit more playful. How much of it was a personal choice, and how much might have been motivated by a need to come across as credible as a woman in the arts world? The exhibition was nicely complemented with works by Ottilie Reylaender, Jacoba van Heemskerck and Erma Bossi, who also trained through travelling or joining artists colonies. Without access to the main academies of art, they did manage to leave their mark but a lot of the paintings presented still revolved around kids and domestic life.
The show closes with a couple of still lifes, which I thought was a great choice. A genre traditionally connected to the private and indoors life, Münter and Modersohn-Becker are reclaiming it and painting it their way. While the context and limitations in which these artists have evolved is sometimes echoed in their work, they have in their own way been pushing down barriers and reinterpreting these themes on their own terms, ‘making modernism.’
Rating: 4.5 / 5
9 to 9 