Paula Becker came from an upper middle class family. In addition to her education at the female teachers course in Bremen, she took private painting lessons, which she continued at the art school of the Berlin Female Artists Club. She visited the Worpswede artists‘ colony for the first time in 1897, and again the following year, when she took painting lessons with Fritz Mackensen. Two years later she was in Paris for the first time. After her return, she married Otto Modersohn, who recognized her talent, supported her and made further stays in Paris possible for her. Inspired by the works of van Gogh and the impressionists, she developed her own painting style, but received little recognition during her lifetime. Her main theme are figures, often children, in the moorlands of Worpswede. Today she is considered an important precursor of the budding Expressionism.