The first book written by Perry, it evolved out of research for her MPhil at the University of Sussex. It was the first monograph on Modersohn-Becker to be published outside Germany, and draws extensively on the artist’s letters and diaries, and research done by the author in Worpswede, the artists’ colony in North Germany where Modersohn-Becker lived, and the women artists with whom she lived and worked. It explores her interests in the work of contemporary French Post-Impressionist and Fauve artists, her struggles with her role as ‘artist’ and her close friendship with poet Rainer Maria Rilke, while living in Paris. It also explores her repetition of the self-portrait, the ‘always available model’ for a woman artist. Subsequent research, exhibitions and publications by other scholars over recent decades have developed and enriched this early material on Modersohn-Becker, helping to position her work within both feminist and more canonical art histories of the early 20th century.