Clara Rilke-Westhoff

Clara Rilke-Westhoff (1878-1954), daughter of a Bremen merchant family, was one of the pioneers of women in art. Like her companion Paula Modersohn-Becker, she broke with the conventions of her time and chose a domain that had until then been reserved mainly for men: sculpture. She went to Munich, which around 1900 was one of the leading art cities in Europe alongside Paris, and then to the artist colony of Worpswede, where she worked with Max Klinger and became a student of Auguste Rodin. Back in Worpswede, she met Rainer Maria Rilke, and they married in 1901. Throughout her life, the artist struggled with the tension between her roles as a wife and mother and her artistic creation. Today, her sculptures stand alongside the works of Rodin in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.