Being Here

‘Marie Darrieussecq reads the testament of Modersohn-Becker—the letters, the diaries, and above all the paintings—with a burning intelligence and a fierce hold on what it meant and means to be a woman and an artist.’—J. M. Coetzee

‘A brief, powerful artistic life that went painfully unrewarded—until after the painter’s death.’—Julian Barnes, The Guardian

‘A luminous tale about the courage of the lone female artist.’—Joan London

‘A series of rapid vignettes full of lightness and longing. This is a short book, but it sparkles with interest…There’s no resisting the urgency of Darrieussecq’s sympathy for – and identification with – this fascinating artist.’—The Saturday Paper

Born in Germany in 1876, Paula Modersohn-Becker was the first female artist to paint herself not only naked but pregnant. Being Here is a moving account of the life of this ground-breaking Expressionist painter by the acclaimed French writer Marie Darrieussecq.

As her art evolves, Paula is torn between Paris and her home in northern Germany. In Paris she can focus on her work, and mix with artists like Rodin and Monet, or her close friend the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. But Germany is home, and that’s where her painter husband Otto lives.

Darrieussecq thrillingly describes Paula’s discovery of her style and choice of subjects—women, babies, domestic life. She tells the story of her fraught marriage, her ambivalence about combining her passion for her career as an artist with motherhood. And she recounts her tragic death at thirty-one, days after giving birth.