Painting is an unacceptable vocation for a woman in provincial Germany in 1900, but the artist Paula Becker is determined to make her own rules. The exuberant 24-year-old woman rejects the conventional and explores her unique style. She flourishes in the countryside art community of Worpswede, where she develops friendships with the artist Clara Westhoff and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. By marrying the painter Otto Modersohn, she hopes to find a creative soulmate, but five years of domesticity take its toll on Paula’s spirit, and she travels alone to Bohemian Paris, where she embarks on a long-awaited period of creative fulfillment and self-realization...