Google honors artist Modersohn-Becker with new Doodle

Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Google is celebrating German expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker on what would have been her 142nd birthday with a new Doodle.

Modersohn-Becker, who is credited with helping to give rise to the modernist movement alongside artist Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, started to embrace art at the age of 18 when she defied her parents to join an artist colony in Norther Germany where she met her future husband, respected artist Otto Modersohn, Time reported.

Modersohn-Becker then moved to Paris to learn more about art where she get engaged and produced more than 80 pictures in 1906 alone.

"Modersohn-Becker was known for her bold choices as an artist - be it her depictions of nude female figures (among the very first women artists to do so), or those of women breastfeeding their children. She tenaciously resisted the strict expectations held of women of her era, preferring exploration and painting over more traditional pastimes," Google said of her career.

She died in 1907 at the age of 31 of an embolism 18 days after giving birth to her daughter.

Google's homepage features an illustration inspired by Modersohn-Becker's work by Berlin-based duo Golden Cosmos, She is is seen holding up a paintbrush and flowers with four completed paintings on display behind her.