Dear Friend: Rainer Maria Rilke and Paula Modersohn-Becker

In 1908, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote Requiem for a Friend in memory of Paula Modersohn-Becker, the German painter who had profoundly affected him and who had died a year earlier. Although a great modern painter, Modersohn-Becker is remembered primarily as she is portrayed in Rilke’s poem. Dear Friend looks at the relationship of two great artists whose often-strained friendship was extraordinary for both.