When Paula Modersohn-Becker's artist friends examined her extensive estate a few weeks after her death in 1907, they were overwhelmed. Only gradually did they realize that in the painter, dead at thirty-one, they had had an outstanding artist in their midst. Today Modersohn-Becker is regarded as one of the pioneers of Expressionism. Sculptor Bernhard Hoetger was one of the few people who recognized Modersohn-Becker's talent from an early stage. In...