Worpswede

By "Worpswede", art historians mean an artist colony that formed at the end of the 19th century in Worpswede, a small area in the province of Osterholz, Lower Saxony. The painter Fritz Mackensen founded the colony, which other artists joined. The Worpswede Group became known for its anti-academic landscape painting: the artists looked to the simple peasant life in the austere Northern German landscape for their art. Their models were, to be sure, the French Impressionists; even so, however, the Worpswede artists belonged at the same time to the precursors of expressionism. The writer Rainer Maria Rilke also lived for a time at the artist colony in Worpswede. Important Worpswede painters are: Bernhard Hoetger, Fritz Mackensen, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Otto Modersohn, Richard Oelze, Fritz Overbeck, Heinrich Vogeler, Clara Westhoff.

Related artists:  Modersohn, Otto  |  Modersohn-Becker, Paula  |  Overbeck, Fritz  |  Vogeler, Heinrich